London Marathon week impressively has squeezed in some of the good, the bad and the downright ugly side of long-distance running.

China’s unstoppable weightlifters racked up another nine world records, the United States had by far its best continental results, Japan and Korea continued their impressive progress, Saudi Arabia won a first major gold medal and Haiti made it on to the podium for the first time.

In a week from now, the supporters of Torino will make a sad pilgrimage to a hillside on the outskirts of the city to remember the victims of an air crash which wiped out their entire team 70 years ago this week.

Trash talking has been a feature of sport for many years. You could certainly trace a line back in cricket to WG Grace’s terse comment to an opponent as he sought to replace the bails on his stumps after being bowled first ball: "They came to see me bat - not you bowl."

The history of labour relations in sport can be seen as a chronicle of athletes’ struggle to secure a bigger share of the spoils produced by a particularly successful arm of the leisure sector, one of the great growth industries of the past, what, 200 years.

Opprobrium has been heaped upon the head of Amir Khan for the demeaning manner of his exit in his abortive challenge to the brilliant and unbeaten World Boxing Organisation (WBO) welterweight champion Terence Crawford on Saturday night in New York.

Conflicting messages have again emanated from International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in the past 10 days.

Athlete representation has been the focus of the past couple of weeks in sports governance circles, with several different events featuring panellists musing over the topic.

It is a sad indictment of the state of global sports governance that everywhere you look, a bad news story seems to rear its ugly head.

The latest International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes' Forum held in Lausanne this past week was claimed to be the biggest ever with some 350 participants drawn from across the world of sport.

"You wouldn’t turn up to an Olympic final without training. So why would it be different for what you do after?"

On Monday, along with millions of others, I watched, horrified and helpless, as the great cathedral of Notre-Dame, the second or third-most iconic structure in the city that will host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, burnt.

It is almost a decade and half since Amir Khan won the British nation’s hearts and the Olympic lightweight silver medal in Athens as a bright-eyed 17-year-old who was Britain's lone ring representative, losing only in the final to the Cuban maestro Mario Kindelan, then the world’s finest amateur.

When an athlete takes a shortcut to high performance by doping, there are many victims. Fans, families, friends and coaches all suffer, but none more so than the clean athletes who are cheated along the way. We are the ones who are most affected.