Doping bans should be met with celebration, not resignation

Each doping ban means clean athletes have a better shot at victory. 

LENGTHY BAN: Blessing Okagbare of Team Nigeria competes during round one of the Women's 100m heats on day seven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Pic: Patrick Smith/Getty Images

By now it’s an annual tradition: major athletics event on the horizon, major doping bust. This is a good thing. Always has been, always will be. Because when it comes to drugs in sport, ignorance is a very misguided form of bliss.

At the Doha World Championships in 2019, it was Alberto Salazar, the US coach whose unashamed embrace of the grey area turned out to involve dabbling in the dark arts, as many suspected. We never did find out which, if any, of his athletes was doping, though.