In the few short days since, bans have been handed to three Olympic champion race-walkers, while the reigning Olympic steeplechase champion Yulia Zaripova is also set to be stripped of her title due to suspicious biological passport readings. The country's top athletics coach has lost his job and a new Government position has been set up to combat doping, but there still seems little willingness from key officials to accept the scale of the problem.

Yet, Russia is by no means the only guilty party. The International Association of Athletics Federations may have criticised the supposed list which reportedly documents 150 athletes - including a high profile Briton and leading individuals from many other countries - with suspicious blood values recorded between 2006 and 2008, but I am not so sure.

I have been told off in the office this week for expressing scepticism about certain sporting performances about which I have no evidence to back up my claims, but if I have learnt one thing in my short time at insidethegames, it is that you can never be absolutely sure that anyone is clean regardless of what they say about doping, or whatever their test results indicate.

And for all the backslapping at the IOC Session in Monte Carlo last month when it was emphatically - and rather pointlessly - declared that tackling doping is the "biggest priority" in the Olympic Movement, for me all the big sporting organisations are still not doing enough to combat the problem.

The case of Lance Armstrong taught us to be skeptical about doping in sport...if nothing else ©Getty Images



Yet, just when I was in mid-rant yesterday about this, one of my colleagues rather wisely switched the radio over to the football, and I was distracted by a scintillating afternoon showcasing the other side of the coin: all that is still good and desirable about sport today.

For those that are not familiar with the FA Cup, the tournament, first awarded in 1872, is open to all levels of English teams, with those from the lowest level having to play a surfeit of qualifying rounds before the Premier League big boys enter proceedings in round three. With teams drawn at random, the tournament is renowned for producing shock results, and for providing that one glorious opportunity for lower league players to mix with multi-millionaires, play on live television and enjoy a lucrative pay day.

In recent years there has been a sense that the tournament has lost some of its grandeur, with the allure of the Champions League meaning the FA Cup has become a lesser priority for some of the top teams. But this season, with the standard of Spain and Germany's finest meaning European glory is a tough ask for a British team, many seem to have realised the FA Cup offers perhaps the only chance of silverware, and they have consequently talked a good game and fielded strong sides for their opening matches.

Yet this weekend, the Premier League's finest have been well and truly shown up.

First we had Manchester United, playing a team including superstars Radamel Falcao and Angel Di Maria, held to a goalless draw at Cambridge United. I doubt a Friday night in Cambridge was why Falcao was enticed to come and play in England, and he looked uncomfortable and freezing throughout.

Yet by last night, a 0-0 draw seemed a pretty solid result as Chelsea, Manchester City and Southampton, the league's top three, had all been dumped out, the first two by lower league opposition. The manner of Chelsea's 4-2 loss to Bradford City was simply astonishing, with Chelsea, playing at home, going two goals up in the first half only to spectacularly lose the plot.

Bradford City celebrate their sensational 4-2 FA Cup win over Chelsea ©Getty Images






Suddenly, the meanest defence in English football were kicking at the air, as the League One side surged forward again and again, and when Chelsea reinforcements arrived in the shape of Cesc Fàbregas and Willian, Bradford went and increased their lead.

It was a reminder that football, to a greater degree than any other sport, is still capable of throwing up results which make absolutely no sense at all, too incomprehensible even to be considered as a plot for a Hollywood film.

A lot of rather irritating clichés get used in football, but never has the phrase the "magic of the Cup" seemed more apt.

United States Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren once said he read the sports pages of newspapers first because they focused on human accomplishments and achievements, while the front pages focused on human failing.

It has been shown this week that Warren's claim is not completely true, and there are plenty of failings in the sports pages as well, but his claim has also been backed up by action on the pitch.

To adapt another well used footballing cliché. It was a week of two halves, with much of the time spent discussing all that is wrong with modern sport, only for the likes of Cambridge and Bradford to remind us of the brilliance that remains possible.

Nick Butler is a Senior Reporter for insidethegames. To follow him on Twitter click here.