Since it began in 1954, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award – originally the Sports Review of the Year Award – has engendered debate and disagreement.

What do you mean "No it hasn't?" I insist it has.

Even the original award looked, and still looks, debateable, given that, in the year Roger Bannister produced the athletics equivalent of climbing Mount Everest by running the first sub-four minute mile, the dear old silver-plated four-turret lens camera - as we don't know it - was presented to Bannister's chum and fellow runner Christopher Chataway.

The latter, of course, had played a telling part in the former's achievement by pacing the early part of that iconic race at Iffley Road, Oxford along with Chris Brasher. But his primacy was established on the basis of his feat in the London versus Moscow match at the White City, where he tracked the European champion, Vladimir Kuts, until the final few strides of the 5,000 metres before bursting past to win, taking five seconds off the world record as he did so.

It was a stupendous piece of running. But Bannister's was a momentous piece of running.

Roger Bannister breaks the Four Minute Mile in 1954. It wasn't quite enough to earn him the BBC award, but good try  Hulton Archive ©Hulton Archive

By the end of 1954, not only had Bannister produced his historic flourish at Oxford, but he had also won what has come to be known as the Miracle Mile at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, where he beat the Australian who had surpassed his world record mark, John Landy. And he had followed up three weeks later by taking the European 1500m title in a championship record time.

Two factors clearly told in favour of the dashing Chataway - his race was fresher in the minds of the public, as it took place four months after the Four Minute Mile. And it was broadcast live on TV, going out across Europe to a record audience of 12 million viewers.

Chris Chataway beats Vladimir Kuts at the White City. This was enough to win the BBC award
©Hulton Archive

Sadly for Bannister, the Good Sports Awards were not created until 1990 - for one year only - and in any case he would not have qualified as, unlike all four recipients, he had not been involved in a high speed motor racing accident. Had those awards been in existence then, however, he would surely have received one, given that he was graciousness itself during the live broadcast from the Savoy Hotel where he was asked, as runner-up, to present the award to the winner.

In retrospect, that was probably where it all went wrong for Bannister, who had to content himself in later life with becoming a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford.

Since that contentious start, the annual awards - which this year mark their 60th anniversary - have created a sequence of questionable results. Two that spring to mind - 1997, when the affable, naturalised Canadian Greg Rusedski got the winner's camera after finishing runner-up in the US Open, and 2009, when veteran Manchester United player Ryan Giggs got the award the year after his team had won the European Cup, with Jenson Button, who had finally secured the Formula One world title, pushed down to second place.

Ryan Giggs, a great footballer admittedly, won the BBC Sports Personality Award in 2009 for no apparent reason ahead of Formula 1 champion Jenson Button ©Getty Images


The awards have also involved a proliferation of categories over the years. Aside from the rash of Good Sports which broke out in 1990 there have been other one-offs. In 1969, for instance, having guided Leeds United to the League title, Don Revie was given the Manager of the Year award. In its splendid isolation, it now appears like the Don Revie Award for being Don Revie.

In 1983, in a fit of generosity, the event bestowed upon Alan Bond and his crew on Australia II the International Team Award, nominally for winning the America's Cup but in effect for giving their complacent US rivals a well-merited putdown.

Alan Bond was honoured for skippering the Australia II boat to the America's Cup - ahead of America @Getty Images

In retrospect, too, the one-off Special Team Award given to the British men's 4x400m relay squad after their victory at the 1986 European Championships looks like a warm-hearted indulgence. But then athletics, for whatever reason, has proved far and away the most popular sport over the years as far as BBC viewers have been concerned.

Track and field has garnered more than twice as many first places as its nearest rival, Formula One - 17 to six, with football and boxing joint third with five. Its pre-eminence is even more overwhelming when the total number of "podium placings" is taken into account, with athletics earning 46 total placings to F1's 13 and football's 20.

Cricket and cycling are currently joint third in the overall winners' rankings with four victories apiece. But tennis, now on three winners, looks likely to be joining them once the envelope has been opened at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on December 15.

Andy Murray has already been installed as 1-40 favourite after becoming the first British man to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936.

If that landslide comes to pass, Sir Ben Ainslie would surely be left wondering what he has to do to win having followed a fourth Olympic sailing gold with an inspirational performance which prompted Team Origin to return from the - metaphorical - sea bed to win the America's Cup. Cue debate and disagreement...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Taken at face value, it was just a harmless - and rather imaginative - public relations stunt. But I wonder whether FIFA President Sepp Blatter's present on Friday to the head of the Roman Catholic church of a Latin edition of the FIFA Weekly, the governing body's new publishing venture, doesn't offer us a deeper glimpse into the mind of the man who has run world football these last 15 years, even though it was an idea of the FIFA communications division.

For quite a long time now, I have felt that the Swiss master sports politician has been preoccupied with convincing people of the power of the game of football, and by extension of the man who runs it, to be a social, and even political force for good.

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence that might lead you to this conclusion: FIFA's slogan, "For the game, for the world"; the attention lavished on development of the sport in Palestine; Blatter's recent visit to Iran, coinciding with a particularly significant point in the country's nuclear dealings with the west, and the emphasis he put on the importance of allowing Iranian women access to football stadiums; the Executive Committee meeting on Robben Island in 2009; the very request for an audience with Pope Francis itself.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter claimed that the Pope told him to "give hope to the poor through football" ©Osservatore Romano

I believe this quest is part of what motivates Blatter, a man now deep into his eighth decade, to keep going in his mentally gruelling, globe-trotting post.

Now if you set such ambitious goals for your sport, a bit of history can come in very handy; intelligently deployed, it can vest your enterprise with the same aura of respectability and permanence that a marble foyer bestows on a bank.

With its mid-nineteenth-century origins (earlier if you include the village-against-village free-for-alls to which some trace the sport's beginnings), football doesn't do badly in the history stakes.

But its longevity, of course, pales into insignificance when set against another sports movement with which Blatter is extremely familiar.

The first ancient Olympiad is generally dated at 776BC, just the 2,639 years before the foundation of the Football Association.

If truth be told, the parallels between what went on at Olympia and a Modern Olympic Games are strictly limited.

For example, the raison d'être of the Ancient Olympics was overtly militaristic, which is certainly not the case today, however frequently athletic success might be pressed into the service of nation-making.

And no attempt has been made by modern Games-makers, so far as I am aware, to recreate the goings-on at the ancient shrine of Zeus, as colourfully evoked by Classical specialist Nigel Spivey in his book, The Ancient Olympics.

"Oxen were brought in by the hundred to be sacrificed to the god," Spivey writes. "Their bellowings resounded down the valley as they were axed before a crowd and the precincts steeped black with their blood. Ash, bones, and bovine offal piled up over centuries into a huge pyramid; it must have reeked to high heaven."

You get the point.

The Olympics can trace its heritage back to 776BC ©Getty Images

And yet these ancient roots have been pressed most effectively into service to invest what actually is a highly successful multinational business with an aura of elemental dignity, simplicity and virtue.

This was most evident, for fairly obvious reasons, in the Athens Olympics of 2004.

But the umbilical link between ancient and modern is re-established ahead of every Games when the Olympic Flame is rekindled at Olympia from the sun's rays.

It is a stroke of luck that the cradle of Olympism also happens to be the cradle of democracy.

But, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of which Blatter is part, has become adept at warding off importunings to meddle in non-sporting affairs when it suits it, the Movement's ancient heritage has specifically been utilised to legitimise a biennial sortie into the minefield of international diplomacy.

This is what is known as the Olympic truce. And while it is hard to imagine a national leader confronted by a perceived casus belli taking a blind bit of notice, it is equally hard not to approve of the sentiment underpinning it: that a period of peace be observed for the Games's duration to enable participants to journey there with peace of mind.

Sepp Blatter is keen to position FIFA so it is seen as a force for good and meeting Pope Francis will undoubtedly help that process ©Osservatore Romano

Much as Blatter might wish it were otherwise, there seems to be zero grounds for thinking that games of "pediludum" were among the entertainments laid on for the delectation of spectators in the Roman Colosseum.

Yet I cannot help wondering whether the Olympic Movement's masterful use of its ancient heritage wasn't somewhere in the mind of the FIFA President on Friday when he handed the fruit of FIFA's playful excursion into the classics to a pontiff who, one suspects, might have preferred a Spanish version.

Blatter's subsequent comments would certainly buttress the arguments of anyone thinking that part of the reason for requesting the audience with one of the world's foremost faith leaders was to add legitimacy to his own efforts to push beyond the bounds of sport.

The Pope, he said, "asked me personally to give hope to the poor through football.

"He also requested that we use our footballing efforts to promote, intensify and continue to strive for world peace."

Or as a Latin scholar might put it, "pax vobiscum".

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here.

Baku: Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a new PlayStation game or something you might order with sushi in a Japanese restaurant?

Of course, insidethegames followers will be well aware that in fact it is the capital of Azerbaijan and an ambitious player in sport's international marketplace.

But for the world at large, this four-letter word is one that will become increasingly familiar in the sporting lexicon as sports organisations seek fresh, hospitable environments to promote and stage major events.

One such happening has been secured for 2015 - thanks to more than a little help from expertise honed in London here during 2012.

More of the forthcoming inaugural European Games anon.

Baku is an ambitious player in sport's international marketplace ©AFP/Getty Images


The backdrop to Eastern Europe's newest and most vibrant hub is fascinating. Baku, a city of some two million, has certain geographic distinction. At 28 metres below sea level, it is the lowest lying national capital - and largest city in the world located below sea level.

Unlike those Middle East hotspots jostling for positions of sporting power, it is climatically agreeable for much of the year, largely because of its northerly latitude that it is located on a peninsula projecting into the Caspian Sea.

While the majority of Azerbaijanis are Muslim, theirs is a sufficiently liberal form of Islam to comfortably exist in what by statute is a secular state, which ensures religious freedom. Religious minorities include Russian Orthodox Christian, Catholics and Jews.

Previous claims to fame include hosting last year's Eurovision Song Contest and the 2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships.

Now Baku's hosting of the first European "Olympics" will greatly assist its enlistment to the international sporting establishment.

Baku hosted the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest won by Sweden's Loreen
©AFP/Getty Images


Baku has twice bid for the full-blown Olympics - those in 2016 and 2020 - but did not make the cut. Few doubt that one day it will.

According to the Lonely Planet rankings, Baku is also among the world's top ten destinations for urban nightlife. Though Las Vegas it isn't - yet.

But there are enough petro-dollars knocking around to have leading professional boxing promoters sniffing it out as a tax-friendly haven for future big fights.

Baku's long-term sports strategy includes hosting the European Youth Olympic Trials in June 2014, the European Athletics Convention in October 2014 and the Islamic Solidarity Games in 2017.

Such is its potential that Darryl Seibel, high-flying communications chief of the British Olympic Association (BOA), will be departing after the Sochi Winter Games in February to become the full-time orchestrator of the PR build-up for the European Games, which run from June 12-28, 2015.

Athletics has yet to commit but there will be 18 sports plus the newly added element of Street Games, a total involvement of more than 5,000 competitors from 49 countries.

Darryl Seibel will become the full-time orchestrator of the PR build-up for the 2015 European Games following the conclusion of Sochi 2014 ©Getty Images


"It is a tall order to put together a first-time event as it brings many challenges," says Seibel. "We are doing it in a very compressed calendar, as the European Olympic Committee (EOC) only agreed to go ahead last December.

"With an Olympic Games you have seven years to prepare; we have to do this in two and a half.

"The model is very much like that of the Asian or Pan-American Games."

Seibel is American, as is the Games chief operating officer Jim Scherr. But the bulk of the engine room will be comprised of Britons, most of who are being recruited on the back of 2012.

"The team being put together has some outstanding talent, much of it from London 2012," Seibel told insidethegames.

"These include key posts like venues, housing, transportation and logistics - areas where London 2012 really excelled."

Among those already on board are James Macleod, who was in charge of LOCOG's service division, and new sports director Pierce O'Callaghan, who has worked with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the EOC.

Simon Clegg has been appointed to oversee the EOC involvement in the European Games as senior consultant and executive director ©Getty Images


However, perhaps the most intriguing presence is that of Simon Clegg, the former BOA chief executive, latterly chief executive of Football League club Ipswich Town and consultant to Madrid's 2020 Olympic bid. Last week he was elected to the BOA Board that once employed him for 20 years. Clegg will oversee the EOC involvement in the Games as senior consultant/executive director.

Current BOA chair Sebastian Coe has given the Euro Games his endorsement. "He is very enthusiastic," says Seibel, "especially as there will be so many in Baku who worked with him on 2012."

Seibel himself became involved when approached by former United States Olympic Committee (USOC) secretary general Scherr, with whom he worked first with at US Wrestling and subsequently for six years as top spin doctor at the USOC from 2003-2009.

"The opportunity to work again with Jim certainly appealed to me," he says.

The move was accelerated when Seibel failed to land the vacant post of BOA chief executive, for which he had applied and was a serious contender before they settled for the commercial nous of new incumbent Bill Sweeney, former head of Puma business development.

Seibel, much admired for his handling of the BOA image during an impressive 2012 media-friendly campaign - he was one of then chairman Colin Moynihan's more inspired hirings - would have stayed with the BOA had he got the chief executive's job.

Coe wanted him to stay put, but he will go with the good Lord's blessing and good wishes. So Siebel is currently dividing his time between working for the BOA on Sochi 2014 and advance planning for Baku 2015.

Baku 2015 illustrates Azerbaijan's sporting ambitions @Francesco Vignali/Baku 2015


"There is no doubt that working with the BOA, not just on the 2012 project, and with the British media, has been the most rewarding chapter in my professional career," he added.

Whether Coe will seek another high-flyer to replace the personable American is an interesting question.

Jackie Brock-Doyle, his London 2012 communications director would have been ideal but she has since moved onwards and upwards as chief executive of international PR outfit Good Relations. Coe could promote Seibel's extremely capable number two Miriam Wilkens. There are also a couple of well-respected journalists with outstanding Olympic credentials who might interest him - Adrian Warner, who leaves the BBC next year, and Ashling O'Connor, late of The Times.

Meantime, Baku beckons for Seibel and comrades of the Class of 2012.

"Baku is a fantastic place, a city on the move and one where those of us who work in international sport are going to be spending an increasing amount of time in the coming years," Seibel concludes.

Knowing Seibel's propensity for a professionally masterminding a lively promotional campaign, we can be certain we'll be hearing a great deal more about this ultra-ambitious sporting citadel. All of it good.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

When you consider the brokering of the breakthrough nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, it was not a bad weekend for international harmony.

In comparison, outcomes from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) General Assembly in Athens may not have had quite the same global significance but, given the vast strides forward the Movement has made in recent years, they certainly wielded much.

Held nine years after Games' which resulted in wide-ranging improvements for the disabled in Greece, and one year on from the unprecedented success of London 2012, keeping the bandwagon rolling ever forward is the greatest challenge by far.

When asked what had changed the most since he first assumed the Presidential Office in 2001, Sir Philip Craven described a transformation from a "disability organisation to a sporting organisation."

The recent Lords Committee Report on the Olympic Legacy "Keeping the Flame Alive" raises further questions as to why so little effect has occurred in athletics.

Athletics is the major and most inclusive of sport of the Olympic Games and its current state throughout Britain hinges around the continued failure of the Government's quangos, Sport England and UK Sport to have implemented an independent and on-going system of scrutiny and accountability ever since funding began in 1998 to properly evaluate how funding is being spent and what it actually achieves in benefit to the sport.

One of the main reasons is because the Sports Minister and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Select Committee continue to rely solely on whatever their quangos report, albeit unverified, and have continued to ignore - or at least act upon - statistically evidenced representations which prove and strongly contradict what the quangos claim for increased medal achievements at global events - Olympics and World Championships - and also the false and grossly misleading grass roots participation figures given and from which our elite have always emerged.

The promised athletics legacy from London 2012 has simply not happened ©Getty Images


For example, Sport England's "Active Peoples Survey" claims an average of 90,000 people at 16 year+ participating in track and field at least once per week on athletics tracks throughout the year. But a simple analysis of competition results shows less than 4,000 over 16 year olds actually competing regularly. And the drop off rate from the sport altogether between 16-25 is very alarming.

With 200 tracks available around the country Sport England's claimed 90,000 per week would mean an average 450 on each track at least once per week. A wholly ridiculous assertion.

UK Athletics, the body funded by UK Sport to develop our elite through its "no compromise" approach, has produced no improvement for all global medals since Atlanta 1996 - six medals - when they were unfunded through to London 2012 - six medals - yet after £300 million ($486 million/€359 million) in public and commercial funding UK Sport's original progressive target by 2012 was for 12 medals.

UK Athletics bureaucracy has now grown to become the largest national governing body for athletics in the world with over 140 employed in addition to their subsidiary, England Athletics with 80 employed, tasked to develop the grass roots.

Neither body was elected by the sport but imposed on the clubs by UK Sport and Sport England and are totally unaccountable to those they purport to represent. They have been set up as Private Limited Companies and are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Regular competitive participation, particularly in track and field, continues to
decline ©AFP/Getty Images


Quite incredibly, UK Sport carries out no scrutiny of how funds are spent and what it achieves and specifically encourages UK Athletics - and all other funded National Governing Bodies (NGB) - to "self assess" relying wholly on what the NGB care to tell them which in turn is reported to the DCMS by UK Sport as factual.

Liz Nicholl, current chief executive of UK Sport, was previously called back by the Public Accounts Committee and reprimanded for presenting a highly misleading and inappropriate medal count from the last Olympic cycle.

Following the Olympics there was a huge wave of eager young kids, mainly from the lower half of the seven to 14-year-olds, wanting to do athletics and many clubs were inundated and most had to make waiting lists because they simply could not cope. But one year on interest has waned and the real problem for the clubs is the lack of under-20s and seniors and the lack of coaches, officials and team managers to cater even for them.

The promised legacy, so massively promoted in securing the Games that promised a whole new generation would be inspired to take up sport, has simply not happened. And ever since the Games, the Government Sports Minister and quangos claim huge success and continue to promote the falsity of "increased participation" - meaning any kind of physical activity once a week - when in reality regular competitive participation, particularly in track and field, continues to decline.

The full Lords Committee Report can be downloaded here.

John Bicourt is an English former record holder and represented Britain in the 3,000 metres steeplechase at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics. He has coached, advised and managed a number of Olympic and World Championship athletes from Britain, Australia, South African, Kenya and the United States, including medallists and world record holders. He is an elected officer of the Association of British Athletics Clubs.

Strike up the bouzouki and break out the retsina: I think I have spotted a positive story concerning Athens's Olympic - or, to be precise, Paralympic - legacy.

When I read that the 16th International Paralympic Committee (IPC) Conference and General Assembly is to be staged in the Greek capital from today, it took me back to an interview I conducted with Costas Cartalis, former general secretary for the Olympic Games at the Greek Ministry of Culture, well before the fiscal crisis that has devastated the country asserted its grip.

In the context of a general assessment of the cost and impact of the 2004 Games, Cartalis put the preparatory upgrading of the city's hotel stock firmly in the credit column.

Prior to the upgrade, he told me, there were only about 40 rooms with wheelchair access in the entire city.

"Even the Acropolis has become accessible to people with disabilities."

I cannot believe, in short, that the IPC would have been able to hold such an important - and, with 450 people expected, such a big - event in Athens without the new infrastructure put in place for those history-steeped Olympic and Paralympic Games of nine years ago.

It is only a modest legacy, admittedly; it is hard to imagine that delegates, congregating inter alia for a Presidential election pitting incumbent Sir Philip Craven against Alan Dickson, his fellow Briton, will provide more than the tiniest economic stimulus, no matter how enthusiastically the eventual winner celebrates victory.

The Athens 2004 Paralympics helped improve facilities for the disabled in Greece
@Getty Images

But it makes a change from reading accounts of white elephants said to have been bequeathed to the city by the Games.

Frankly, even the most meticulously-planned set of venues would probably have been left surplus to requirement given the magnitude of the economic catastrophe that has swept through the country since the Paralympic cauldron was extinguished.

I left Athens after that visit with a more nuanced view of the 2004 legacy than some.

Yes, the sports venues could and should have been much better thought through.

"Even if we had a significant dearth of sports facilities, [some of] these facilities would still be useless," Christos Hadjiemmanuil, former President of Hellenic Olympic Properties, a body set up by the Government to determine the long-term future of many venues, told me at the time.

"We don't need a 5,000-seat arena for weightlifting.

"Or a 7,000-seater for badminton when nobody here knows what the game looks like."

Yet most of the associated transport improvements have been much more successful, even if they inflated the public-sector budget deficit for a time.

"They got probably 25 years of infrastructure in one fell swoop," another seasoned observer of the regional economy told me.

"If you are an ordinary Athenian, it is just so much easier to get around."

Whatever your view, nearly a decade on, on what the 2004 Games did for Athens, Sir Philip and his colleagues can rest assured, as they attend their deliberations, that they have gathered in a place that really needs their help.

And had those Games been staged somewhere else, then I think the present conference would have been held elsewhere too.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

On the eve of the latest Ashes Test series in Australia, former England fast bowler Steve Harmison has told BBC Sport that Kevin Pietersen - on the brink of his 100th Test match - is "the best player ever to wear an England shirt".

Why?

I don't mean why in the sense of "has Pietersen scored more runs than any other England batsman?" or "is his average superior to any other England player?" or even 'is his style so superlative that watching him score 10 runs surpasses the pleasure of watching anyone else compile a double century?'

And I don't question Harmison's knowledge of the man in question, given that they were team-mates during England's victorious Ashes campaigns of 2005 and 2009.

No. What I mean is, why does the judgement always have to be who is the "best ever"? It is such a banal idea. Why do people think they have to keep straining towards such questions?

Thus we have heard in recent times how Rafael Nadal is the greatest-ever tennis player. Is he really? What about that other rather good player, the one who still holds the record of 17 Grand Slams...whatshisname?..people used to say the same thing about him....nope...name's gone...

Do you remember this tennis player? He was very good, the greatest ever of all time some said, and his name is Roger Federer @Getty Images

And then there was that other one, the one with the dodgy back who won seven Wimbledons...name's on the tip of my tongue...

Of course, all competitive sport works towards the establishment – Roger Federer! Of course! - of who is best. But while the relative judgement of times or scores is absolute, there is rather more involved – and Pete Sampras! Yes! - in ascertaining the relative values of less specific factors.

In all - or at least all available - seriousness, Federer's record and overall style has prompted many observers within the game to describe him as the "greatest ever", although Andre Agassi, who won all four Grand Slams himself, has said Nadal is now "making the argument"to be considered greater even than the greatest ever. Hyperbole upon hyperbole.

Within athletics, currently, there is no great argument going on about who is the paramount track and field performer - it is Usain Bolt, the sprinter who in the past five years has raised the consciousness of his sport to well beyond its own boundaries. How many times in those years have I heard this affable Jamaican referred to as "the greatest athlete of all time"? (This is of course a rhetorical question, but if you would like to answer it, something along the lines of "more times than you can remember" would probably hit the mark quite well.)

Perhaps it would be best to leave such questions until the end of ever, when we can all be sure.

Usain Bolt at this summer's IAAF World Championships in Moscow - is he the "greatest ever'"- or is it not quite that simple? @Getty Images

During last weekend's World Athletics Gala at the International Association of Athletics Federation's base in Monaco the second batch of athletes to enter the organisation's Hall of Fame offered the poignant sight of champions past moving gingerly onto a stage to claim their glittering prizes to a backdrop of their young, dynamic selves slaying all opposition at the 1948 or 1952 Olympics.

I watched with particular interest as Marjorie Jackson-Nelson, Olympic 100 and 200 metres champion 1952, and Harrison Dillard, Olympic 100m champion in 1948, 110m hurdles champion in 1952, stepped up to receive their awards. Although Dillard, now 90, required a photofinish to be given his 100m gold, he was a clear winner in his preferred event of the hurdles, while the footage of Jackson-Nelson showed her so far ahead of her rivals that those in the auditorium gave a little gasp. Curiously, neither appeared to give their younger selves particular attention.

Harrison Dillard (far left) wins the 1948 Olympic 100m title at Wembley Stadium on a photo-finish from fellow American Barney Ewell (second right) @Hulton Archive/Getty Images

My own interest in these two athletic marvels stemmed from an earlier press conference at which they had been joined by the more recent Olympic champion, Marie-Jose Perec, 200 and 400m double winner at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Although the trio had gathered ahead of the Gala to reflect on questions of sport and life in general, the question asked which occupied them the most was - yes, you've guessed it - "Who has been the greatest athlete of all time?"

Auen enquiry that, as Dillard - still lean enough to merit his old nickname of "Bones" - wryly pointed out, that would continue to be debated down the generations, without any definitive answer.

"What a question!" Dillard responded with a smile. "Obviously Usain Bolt is currently the finest athlete of our time. Times change, and conditions change. I never ran on synthetic surfaces. Who is to say how an athlete of 75 or 100 years ago would perform if they could run on today's tracks, and have access to today's training and medical methods? It makes for wonderful arguments."

Harrison Dillard - still lean, but not at all mean, at 90 @Getty Images

Asked specifically about the relative merits of Bolt and Jesse Owens, who won four golds at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Dillard replied: "Usain Bolt's performances surpass those of Jesse's. But does that mean Usain is a greater athlete than Jesse? Not necessarily. When you consider what Jesse had to do to win those four golds in Berlin, in an atmosphere where Adolf Hitler was promulgating his ideas about Aryan Supremacy - for a young black man to go there and win four golds, that was some athlete.

"As I say, it is a good argument to have, and I get into it with my friends. But I have a little time to talk about it now!"

Jackson-Nelson also recalled the massive differences between the days when she was competing and now.

"We all ran on cinders," she said. "Things were so different for us. When we went away to the Olympics we had to go without wages for three months.

"To see Usain Bolt running on the television is a great pleasure to me, he is so magnificent to watch. He is one in a million."

Marjorie Jackson sets a world record in the 220 yards heats at the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland @Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Perec was similarly just and diplomatic in her response. "He is a phenomenon," she said.

And in so saying, I believe all three got the balance refreshingly right. Nobody was leaping in to make claims or counter-claims for x, y or z. All had seen life enough to know that such hubbub was no more than a noisy distraction from the biggest challenge, summed up by Jackson-Nelson: "The most important thing is life, and how to live it."

This paragon of Australia has retained a similar wry humour to Dillard's in circumstances which have often been far from easy.

"My husband died of leukaemia when he was 45 and that left me with three children to bring up myself," Jackson-Nelson said. "I was Governor of South Australia for seven years, between 2001-2007 and I have also done a lot of work raising money for the Peter Nelson Leukaemia Research charity - I have raised six and a half million dollars so far. And I am just about to become a great grandmother for the second time.

"I think one of the worst things we do to our young people today is tell them that they have to win to be any good. There is too much emphasis on being the number one all the time. If you are an athlete and you train hard and you improve your times, then you are a winner."

Now we are in a different territory from the deliberation over who is the greatest of the great. And it is a healthier place to be.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

I'm pleased to be writing these notes after visiting sunny Cape Town where I was invited to speak at an international conference on drug-free sport and, as most of you will know by now, it's a subject that's very close to my heart.

In the weeks since the former Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson and I completed our round world tour promoting the SKINS' platform Pure Sport, I've received messages of support from all corners of the globe. That, in itself has given us more incentive to continue and the event in Cape Town is just one of a series of post-tour events I've been asked to attend and speak at. It tells me that our recent visits to the UK, Canada, USA, Australia, Japan and South Korea for Pure Sport's first initiative, #ChooseTheRightTrack was absolutely ON the right track.

In recent months, the notion that drug-free sport is a concept embraced by the vast majority of the sport-oriented population has been confirmed beyond all doubt. The problem is, it's usually the activities of the minority which take the headlines.

Ben Johnson and I have completed our round world tour promoting Pure Sport ©Bongarts/Getty Images


When athletes are caught and federations and even nations are challenged because of failing anti-doping practices, there are massive headlines, but when there's a collection of determined people who are focused on supporting the notion of clean, fair sport it takes a lot more effort to get the journalists engaged! I've no complaints about that and having spent the last months in the company of reporters across the world, I understand their motivation because human instinct is that gossip and wrongdoing is much more interesting than doing the right thing. Bad news sells.

That's why events such as the one in Cape Town are so important. Over the two days, a series of senior sports administrators, experts - and me - debated and promoted what most of us regard as the "good things" in sport. I'm proud to have been invited to sit on the same platform as David Howman, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general. Equally, I'm delighted to have followed chief executive of United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart onto the stage to discuss the role sponsors such as SKINS can - and should - play in ensuring proper governance and efficient doping controls. And to go one step further, how great do you think I feel that following ME was Edwin Moses, USADA's chairman and multiple Olympic gold medallist! Edwin is probably best remembered for being unbeaten over almost 10 years - nine years, nine months and nine days without a loss.

Actually, forget the fact it's me, what SKINS is doing to promote this subject is clearly the right thing to do and what's more, it's being noticed. A couple of weeks ago I was in Aarhus, Denmark delivering a similar speech on sponsors' responsibilities; the same message I delivered in Cape Town. Sport has a history of accepting sponsors' money and providing brand exposure in exchange, but I think the message is beginning to hit home that the extra element of corporate responsibility must be weaved into the process. Of course, sport itself has to ensure sponsors are associated with a clean and wholesome product otherwise brands will run away in droves and take their money with them - just like they did when cycling's problems were being aired and the cycling federation's ex-President Pat McQuaid was refusing to acknowledge it (How wonderful it was to have been part of the process that saw him replaced).

Edwin Moses followed me onto the platform at an international conference on drug-free sport in Cape Town ©Getty Images


I believe sponsors can no longer pay for the exposure a sponsorship package will give them and then calmly sit back and simply wait for the association to benefit their business. Sport these days is such a complex, multi-billion dollar business that anyone who touches it is inextricably linked by a chain of responsibility. Sure, as sponsors we want a "bang for our buck" but there's no point in operating commercially if you're not prepared to stand up for every athlete and sports fan who wants to watch or take part in a fair contest. As I see it, what is the point of SKINS selling products to enhance performance and recovery to people who compete at any level, if they believe the top-level sport we're supporting is rotten to the core? It's guilt by association and it makes no sense at all.

So yes, I'm proud to have been in Cape Town and was equally delighted to have been in Aarhus before. Further, I'll be chuffed to bits when I'm joined by Ben Johnson in Dubai later this week to take part in a "Sport versus Crime" conference organised jointly by the Dubai Government and the Dubai Police. This is an event which takes the discussion to a different level by focusing on how cheating in sport can be the first step towards deeper social issues, and equally how clean sport and genuine competition can point people away from crime and towards social integration.

I'm delighted that SKINS is now seen as being a positive voice in the global debate. It confirms how important it is for commercial bodies and sponsors to support the march towards ethical and clean sport rather than pay the money, turn a blind eye, enjoy the exposure and be done with it.

Jaimie Fuller is the chairman of SKINS and the founder of pressure group Change Cycling Now, whose members include Greg LeMond, Paul Kimmage and David Walsh. To follow him on Twitter click here.

According to the British boxing promoter Frank Warren, when Mike Tyson fought fellow American Lou Savarese at Glasgow's Hampden Park 13 years ago the former world heavyweight champion was, if you'll pardon the expression, "strutting around like a dog with two dicks".

Well, now we know why. Tyson claims in his new autobiography that he fooled the UK drugs testers by utilising what he calls his "whizzer" - a false penis filled with someone else's clean urine.

Tyson's story that he slipped it into his shorts before the post-fight test - a ruse he says he employed several times during his 21-year, 58-fight career - following his 38-second demolition of Savarese - will be of acute embarrassment to the testers.

It seems it was him and not them taking the pee.

No doubt the last thing Sir Craig Reedie, who took over as sport's anti-drugs czar last week, anticipated having to get to grips with Iron Mike's prosthetic penis.

Mike Tyson claims that he wore a false penis filled with someone else's clean urine to trick the drug testers during his career, including when he fought Lou Savarese ©Getty Images Europe


But the revelation will be of as serious concern to the freshly-elected President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as any current issues over the Jamaican, Kenyan and Russian testing systems, or the fall-out of the Lance Armstrong scandal which now includes Armstrong's own allegation that international cycling chiefs actually helped him cheat.

For how the druggies avoid being detected is very much on the agenda of the 72-year-old Scot who, allied to his vice-presidency of the International Olympic Association (IOC), is now the most influential figure in global sport, and one with surely the most crucial job.

For Tyson's alleged ruse is certainly not unique.

There are many instances where female athletes have been known to insert "clean" catheters before being tested, a favoured method in the dark days of Eastern bloc domination of women's athletics.

The use of masking agents and renal blocking agents - which do not secrete certain banned substances - still can be reasonably effective methods of avoiding detection.

Less sophisticated and supposedly more fallible a few years back was the consumption red wine before a test.

So too, I am reliably informed, was the ingestion of huge doses of oestrogen - also a masking agent - by some female athletes who persuaded friendly medics to prescribe it for alleged menstrual problems.

Until the whistle was blown, Lance Armstrong was sport's supreme cheat ©Getty Images


Of course, until the whistle was blown, Armstrong was sport's supreme cheat, skilfully avoiding doping controls. Those efforts included providing inadequate whereabouts information and dropping out of races to dodge testers.

The Bulgarians also had it down to a fine art. We now know that their weightlifting team would fast for two to three days before a competition.

Fasting, according to the experts "lowers the amplitude and pulsatility of luteinising hormone, thus, lowering the endogenous production of testosterone".

In addition, fasting also causes an increase in the excretion of steroids.

As a result, their urine samples would show lower levels of testosterone and other steroids because by the time they were tested, they virtually excreted most of the evidence away.

This trick was not the only one for which the Bulgarians were infamous.

Combating the tricks of the trade is a crucial aspect of the battle ahead for new WADA President Sir Craig Reedie ©AFP/Getty Images




They would use the diuretics to urinate out lots of fluid. By ingesting an abundance of water, the diuretics would just accelerate the clearance of steroids or other banned substances from the blood.

As for the Tyson technique, the chances of anyone getting away with such deception these days have diminished as much more intimate scrutiny of the genitals by testers is required while water is passed. Plus the advent of blood testing, which is far more difficult to fake.

But there will always be those who will try.

Combating such tricks of the trade - and they get dirtier by the day - is a crucial aspect of the battle ahead for WADA's new warlord. I suspect it is one Sir Craig will relish.

The retired financial adviser from Glasgow, who says he sees this as "my last big job in sport", is a man of quiet demeanour but, as he demonstrated as a principal architect of London's triumphant 2012 Olympic bid and leader of the IOC's 2020 Evaluation Commission, one whose diligence, integrity and masterfully diplomatic networking, commands worldwide respect.

He will require all those qualities as he leads the quest to counter what he describes as "the biggest current threat to the validity of Olympic sport".

Former British Olympic Association (BOA) chair Sir Craig, a founder director of WADA and latterly its treasurer, and a driving force behind the formation of UK Anti-Doping, was instrumental in drawing up the controversial BOA bylaw that prevented convicted dopers representing Britain at future Olympics, regrettably ultimately overturned.

So it was surely personally satisfying that in Johannesburg last Friday, when he assumed office, WADA finally endorsed four-year bans for first-time offenders, effectively forcing them to miss a Games.

Mike Tyson reveals all in his new book, Undisputed Truth ©WireImage




If he so wished, Reedie might have the opportunity for an admonitory tête-à-tête with Tyson when the self-styled one-time "baddest man on the planet" (or should that be maddest?) comes to Britain next year with his one-man stand-up show.

Though knowing ear-munching Tyson's propensity for blowing a fuse in the ring and out, one doubts the wisdom of any such confrontation.

What isn't in doubt is Tyson's reliance on drugs, so graphically disclosed in a new tell-all tome. He admits he spent a significant stretch of his turbulent career addicted to cocaine and marijuana.

He says his ferocious appetite for drink and drugs - "I was a full-blown cokehead" - dated back to trying cocaine at the age of 11 and first being given alcohol as a baby in New York.

Recalling his shock 2004 loss to Britain's Danny Williams, he revealed he was taking drugs until shortly before the fight.

He blamed a $200,000 (£124,000/€148,000) fine for testing positive for marijuana after a 2000 fight against Andrew Golota in Detroit on the fact that he was tested before having a chance to get the "whizzer" from an unnamed member of his team, whom he claims carried the device from fight to fight, including the one in Glasgow.

Frank Warren has said he is now considering legal action against Mike Tyson over his alleged use of a prosthetic penis ©Getty Images


Warren, who promoted the fight, told insidethegames he is now considering legal action against Tyson because if true, the fighter would have been "in serious breach" of contract.

Warren's in-house lawyers will also be scrutinising the explosive £20 ($32/€24), 600-page book titled "Undisputed Truth" when published here this week, some of which may be destined to become pulp fiction.

Warren's legal team have warned publishers HarperCollins that certain allegations made against the promoter "are untrue and defamatory" and demand their removal.

Warren also says he isn't sure whether to believe the false penis story of that Glasgow drugs test "which could be one of those things which sells books".

So is the tale of Tyson's "whizzer" wheeze really the Undisputed Truth?

Or just a wee fib?

Sir Craig is one Glaswegian who'd certainly like to know.

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.

In his closing remarks at the Conference for Smart Textile Opportunities for Sport in Lausanne last week, moderator Bill Morris drew a comparison between now and the time of the Ancient Greeks.

In what he described as a "eureka moment" - with deliberate irony I hope - he highlighted how the Ancient Greeks wore no advanced technology, in fact nothing at all, when they competed so long ago. Sport in those idyllic days was purely about being faster, higher and stronger, or "citius, altius, fortius", by human means alone.

There was nothing that equipment, medicine, or even advanced training could do to make you better than the rest.

Imagine if the European Olympic Committees (EOC) were to purchase the Olympic Games broadcasting rights for Europe, or the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) bid against NBC and the other networks for the US rights.

Preposterous, right?

Yet this, in effect, is what has just happened in the Caribbean.

On Monday (November 11), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced it had awarded the rights for Rio 2016 in this region of palm trees and Olympic sprinters to CANOC Broadcasting Inc (CBI).

Much the most interesting part of the announcement, however, came in the final paragraph: "CBI is a company that has been formed by the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and Commonwealth Games Associations (CGAs) across the Caribbean to purchase, monetise and manage the broadcast rights for the Olympic Games and other sporting properties."

This notion of NOCs entering the television rights business intrigued me so much I picked up the phone to Larry Romany, CBI's chief executive.

To summarise, Romany, who was President until recently of the Trinidad and Tobago NOC, gives me to understand a) that he wants to provide high-quality, Caribbean-focused coverage throughout the region; and b) that as much as possible of any margin the company makes would be used to develop Caribbean sport.

"We want to utilise the great value the Olympic rings have always had and allow the islands to appreciate what it really is to be part of the Olympic Movement," he tells me.

In many ways, key to the success of the venture will be the nature of the offer to sponsors/advertisers Romany intends to make.

Rather than treat the region as a hotchpotch of island microstates, with individual TV companies left to do their own deals for access to what, inevitably, are pretty small pockets of viewers, even for the most popular events, CBI itself would sign up sponsors wishing to target the entire 40-some million-strong region.

It would then embed the branding of these companies into all its programming.

CBI has said it will target Olympic TOP sponsors - such as McDonald's, regional multinationals and local sponsors ©Getty Images

He might not like the analogy, but it strikes me as an attempt to do for the regional sports advertising market what, a generation or two ago, the West Indies did for Caribbean cricket.

"We will bring all the sponsors to the table and be responsible for selling all sponsorship," he explains, adding that CBI will target Olympic TOP sponsors, regional multinationals and local sponsors.

"Some advertising time - perhaps 90 seconds out of 14 or so minutes of advertising per hour - will be reserved for local companies interested only in their local market.

"We will negotiate with TV stations on terms for broadcasting the programming in their particular market on a revenue-sharing basis.

"By doing that we can control ambush marketing."

Romany emphasises that an as-yet-undisclosed production company would put the programmes together and that the IOC will provide 10 different feeds of the action from Brazil, enabling different languages and points of interest to be catered for: if a St Lucian high-jumper is in action at the same time as a Haitian wrestler, there should be enough flexibility to enable each market to get the pictures it is most likely to be interested in.

So far, so innovative and interesting - and let's not forget that the region possesses the biggest current Olympic star of all, Usain Bolt - but is there not significant financial risk involved for the regional sports bodies?

After all, the IOC has not done this deal on the cheap: I understand CBI is paying $2.5 million (£1.6 million/€1.9 million) - a drop in the ocean compared to the $4.1 billion (£2.5 billion/€3 billion) the IOC expects to raise all told from broadcasting rights for the Olympic cycle encompassing Sochi 2014 and Rio 2016, but more than triple the $750,000 (£465,000/€555,000) paid in the previous quadrennium, and that was for both Winter and Summer Games.

The region possesses the biggest current Olympic star of all - Usain Bolt ©LatinContent/Getty Images



Romany does not attempt to deny that the possibility of making a loss exists, but he makes three points.

1. CBI's model should help the whole region really get the most out of the Olympics and help sponsors to understand the full value of the Caribbean market. Both of these things would be beneficial from the regional NOCs' perspective and, hence, if necessary worth paying a certain amount for.

2. The regional NOCs know the score and realise it is possible - though not expected - that they might have to make further contributions to CBI.

3. "We feel that we are in a fairly good position regarding interest from sponsors. We don't think we will make a lot of money, but we don't believe we will lose any.

"Sponsorship revenue generated from the last Olympic Games from the three biggest island markets alone - Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados - would give us enough money to pay for everything we need."

And if the model works, what plans have been made for reinvesting the surplus in regional sports development, as touched on in Monday's announcement?

Romany explains that revenue-sharing would be on two levels: sports development programmes, targeting what he terms a "priority list" of development issues; and direct funding to regional NOCs for developing their own athletes.

He makes the point that smaller territories, such as Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands, often have almost no access to funding, yet have a tendency to produce good athletes.

He pledges, moreover: "There is no way any of this profit is going to end up in any individual's hands."

The objective, he suggests, is to keep central costs, including the acquisition of further rights, down to such a degree that 85-90 per cent of any surplus would be channelled into development programmes.

Larry Romany says CBI will "utilise the great value the Olympic rings have always had and allow the islands to appreciate what it really is to be part of the Olympic Movement" ©SVGNOC


He makes clear, too, that Rio 2016 is seen as just the start.

CBI would "most definitely" bid for the Winter Olympics in the next cycle, and expects to be in the market for future Pan American and Commonwealth Games, as well as world championships of particular interest to the region.

"We have every intent of owning the Olympic rights in perpetuity," he says.

As proof of their seriousness, CBI is to start making monthly video and radio magazine programmes from February 2014, "so that TV companies get Olympic content over an extended period, rather than just having a two-week bite at the cherry when the Games are on".

The Caribbean is a particularly fragmented region, but it does make you wonder if there might be other parts of the world where such a model could prove beneficial.

At any rate, I wish Romany and his colleagues well.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.

News that the stadium built as a centrepiece for the Centennial 1996 Olympic Games looks set for the scrapheap following the decision by the Atlanta Braves baseball team to move to a new venue is...

Well, what is it exactly? Unexpected? Not really. Expediency was all when this privately funded stadium - it cost $207 million (£135 million/€154 million) - was completed in 1996 to seat 85,000 for the duration of the Games before becoming the land of the Braves.

At the time there was some regret locally at the imminent demise of the Braves' old stadium just a home-run sized smack of a baseball away - the Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium which had housed the team since 1966 when they had transferred from Milwaukee. But it was business first.

(While we're on the subject of business in Atlanta, let's recall the 1996 Games mascot - "a futuristic, animated, computer-generated character with large starry eyes and a big grin, oversized sneakers and lightning bolt eyebrows".

The "F" is silent - Izzy, the 1996 Atlanta Olympics mascot

It broke with Olympic tradition in that it did not correspond to any identifiable creature and could assume different forms. Oddly, its original name of Whatizit changed in the year of the Games to Izzy – a subliminal reminder, perhaps, of the firm which operates out of Atlanta and which many still believe was heavily influential, as a key sponsor, in the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) decision to choose the US hosts for the Centennial Olympics in preference to the hosts of the original modern Games of 1896, Athens.)

And now business dictates that the Braves re-locate to the Cobb County arena in another Atlanta suburb when their 20-year lease on the current venue runs out in 2016 after the collapse of talks between them and the local authority over funding for improved facilities.

Mike Plant, the Braves' executive vice-president of business operations, claimed Turner Field - or "the Ted" as it is known after its namesake, the former Braves owner Ted Turner - needed up to $200 million (£125 million/€149 million) of infrastructure improvements to enhance fans' experience over the next few years.

The old County stadium lives on as a thriving car park. Let's look on the bright side. The stadium in which Muhammad Ali lit the Olympic flame could soon become a bustling supermarket.

Muhammad Ali lights the Olympic Cauldron at the Atlanta 1996 Opening Ceremony @Getty Images

"Does it matter?" I hear you ask.

Personally I think it's a terrible shame. Some of the images that come to mind when I recall the events that took place in that stadium during the Games are, I admit, less than inspiring. Dense swathes of spectators penned in holding areas ahead of ticket checks, quarter of a mile from the stadium perimeter. In sweltering heat, endless opportunities to drink Coca Cola - and nothing else.

Journeying to the Stadium for the Opening Ceremony, the bus on which I was travelling had no air conditioning - with the temperature in the nineties. Sweat was trickling down everyone's faces. A photographer - it is always photographers on such occasions - was attempting to force open a rear door to allow some air in.

Our driver, unaccountably, drove past the dazzlingly lit Stadium and looped round on a drive which took us past scenes which did not reflect well on our host city: scrapyards piled high with rusting vehicles; boarded-up houses with collapsed verandas, overgrown with plants; groups of resentful-looking men gathered at the corner of dirt roads. Incredulity turned to impatience turned to exasperation. Due to popular demand, our driver turned the bus round once again, admitting cheerfully that she had no idea where she was going because she was from out of town. At that point she was almost home.

Donovan Bailey reacts after winning 100m gold ahead of Frankie Fredericks in a world record of 9.84sec at the Atlanta Olympics @Getty Images

But let's not dwell on the downside. Let's recall instead some of the staggering action which that Stadium, once all the whys and wherefores had been set to one side, provided the Olympic story.

Can it really be that, years from now, some wandering shopper musing on the whereabouts of the biscuit aisle will occupy the same space on Mother Earth as did Michael Johnson in his most glorious moment of a glorious athletics career when he stopped the clock in the 200 metres at the extraordinary time of 19.32 - a world record to last for 50 years if ever there was one? (Although Usain Bolt had other ideas just a dozen years later...)

Michael Johnson wins his second gold of the 1996 Games, adding the 200m title in a world record of 19.32sec to his earlier 400m victory @Getty Images

Can it really be that, years from now, some harrassed mother with a carful of squabbling children will reverse over the patch of ground on which Donovan Bailey roared in triumph after crossing the line in the 100m in a world record of 9.84?

Can it really be that, years from now, the oval of ground which pulsated with noise and excitement, drawing the attention of world leaders and a television audience of millions to the greatest regular celebration of sport known to man will become something dull and ordinary?

Of course it can. Just watch.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.

A most interesting relic has fallen into my possession.

Printed on rather garish green paper and dated 28 April 1987, it is an International Olympic Committee (IOC) circular which shows the body just starting, a quarter of a century ago, to grapple with the problem of harmonising the fight against doping across different sports and countries.

Since the World Anti-Doping Code was the eventual fruit of such efforts, the occasion of the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg expected to bring approval of a new version of the code seems an appropriate moment to reflect on the state of thinking 26 years ago and how it compares with today.

Signed by Prince Alexandre de Mérode, the distinguished late Belgian administrator, whose family line stretches back centuries and who acted as chairman of the IOC's Medical Commission for more than three decades, the document - just two pages long, four if you include the French translation - deals with the question of harmonising sanctions for doping transgressions.

Addressed to international sports federations (IFs) and National Olympic Committees (NOCs), it includes a text proposing the "possible unification of sanctions for positive dope controls" and solicits responses.

Prince Alexandre of Mérode's early circular which signalled the start of the International Olympic Committee's fight against doping in 1987 ©David Owen

This text is just 170 words long, including its title, "Recommended Sanctions for Positive Cases".

It says:

"Due to the fact that the sanctions applied by the International Federations for positive doping cases vary considerably, the IOC Medical Commission feels it's necessary to recommend a harmonisation in this field.

"The IOC Medical Commission recommends that a decision by the appropriate authority is made in order to protect the right of the athlete to a fair hearing before sanctions are taken.

"Based on the experience of more than 20 years in doping control activities, it seems to the IOC Medical Commission that a differentiation between "deliberate" and "inadvertent" use of prohibited substances should be made.

"Therefore, a certain flexibility is necessary in decisions regarding sanctions.

"Sanctions for deliberate doping:

eg Anabolic steroids, amphetamine type stimulants, caffeine, cocaine, narcotics and designer drugs:

"3 years for the first offence

"Life ban for the second offence.

"Sanctions for inadvertent use of banned drugs:

"eg ephedrine, codeine:

"3 months for the first offence

"2 years for the second offence

"Life ban for the third offence."

What I find most striking is the air of touching innocence that the statement exudes, in comparison with the corrosive cynicism that quickly surfaces in almost any discussion of the issue today.

This is clearest in the distinction between "deliberate" and "inadvertent" recourse to a prohibited substance.

To me, that distinction is eminently just: it seems self-evident that an athlete who has broken the rules by accident should be treated far more leniently than one who has set out in a calculated manner to try and give herself an illicit edge.

The trouble is, a disciplinary system based on that premise risks opening the door for any offender with a half-decent defence counsel to plead mitigating circumstances and escape with a light sanction.

This has led us down the path to the doctrine of strict liability, which holds that if it can be proven that a banned substance is present in an athlete's system (or present at a higher-than-permitted concentration), then the burden of explanation rests with the athlete, who is unlikely to get off any more lightly than an acknowledged doper without hard evidence to support his claim.

And then there is the profoundly unconvincing use of the phrase "the experience of more than 20 years in doping control activities" to try and vest the text with an air of authority.

Yes, the first Olympic testing had taken place at the Grenoble Winter Games in 1968, but the issue was only just starting to ascend the financially-challenged and boycott-plagued Movement's order of priorities.

Ben Johnson's positive drugs test at Seoul 1988 brought the problem of drugs in sport to the majority of the public's attention for the first time ©Getty Images

Doping was plainly rife in a number of sports, the blood-boosting drug Erythropoietin (EPO) had only just appeared on the scene and the crisis of Ben Johnson's positive test in Seoul was still more than a year away.

That, of course, was the moment when the full extent of the problem started to be exposed and the attritional battle still being waged today truly got under way.

And that is why the Belgian Prince's letter on green paper reads as quaintly 26 years on as a cavalry charge in the age of mechanised warfare.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

Five years on from Beijing, the 2008 Olympic boxing champion James DeGale is not the happiest of boxing bunnies. Overshadowed by the skilfully-hyped pro debuts of sport's new golden boys from 2012, Anthony Joshua and Luke Campbell, he has had to take a back seat watch while George Groves, the detested rival he calls "that ugly ginger kid" has leapfrogged to an all-British world super-middleweight title shot against the World Boxing Association (WBA) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion Carl Froch in Manchester on Saturday (November 23) week.

Equally annoying was seeing his mouthy stablemate Tyson Fury hog the headlines for a fight against David Haye that never happened. Is he bitter? You bet.

But he vows he'll punch his way back into the big picture himself and insists he'll still become the first British Olympic champion to win a world professional title. Only two, Chris Finnegan and Audley Harrison, have even fought for one.

That tortuous journey resumes this Saturday (November 16) night when the former British and European champion defends a bauble labelled the WBC silver super-middleweight belt against little-known American Dyah Davis - son of another Olympic champion, Howard Davis, lightweight gold winner in 1976 - at The Glow, a small hall venue in Kent's Bluewater shopping mall.

James DeGale vows he'll punch his way back into the big picture


A far cry from Manchester's massive Phones 4u Arena where Groves faces Froch in a rare all-British title fight before a sell-out crowd of 20,000.

The venue has unpleasant recall for DeGale. It was there - when known as the MEN Arena - that fellow west Londoner Groves controversially pipped him by a point and relieved him of his unbeaten pro record and British title he had acquired in only his ninth fight, a result that still rankles.

Many so-called feuds in boxing are cynically manufactured to boost ticket sales. But not this one. Their animosity stretches back to their amateur days when DeGale, who had lost to Groves in the Amateur Boxing Association of England (ABAE) Championships, was selected over him for the Olympics.

Their verbal exchanges have been as fractious as their actual ring combat and Harlesden's DeGale says of his arch enemy from nearby Hammersmith: "He's a flash, smug, infantile prat and I hope Froch flattens him - which he will."

It clearly irritates DeGale intensely that "Saint George" Groves has beaten him to the punch - again.

Small wonder that the 27-year-old self-managed "Chunky" has tersely instructed his promoter Mick Hennessy: "No more treading water. Let's get the fingers out and get me that world title shot. I really thought I should be fighting for one by now. It should be me in there against Froch, not Groves."

His has been on something of a helter-skelter ride since Beijing. "The Olympic win feels like only five minutes ago and yet it was five years," says DeGale, who signed a seven-figure deal with promoter Frank Warren after the Games all but split with him last year. "You get back from an Olympics and you're hot property. I signed for the biggest promoter in Europe but after my first professional fight, when I got booed, I thought to myself: 'Right, this ain't all glitz and glamour. That all fades, this is some serious stuff'."

James DeGale has been on a helter-skelter ride since the Beijing 2008 Olympics


Sixteen fights later, his only two bouts this year have been at Bluewater and an outpost in Quebec.

"It's frustrating, but that is part of what drives me on. I know I should be in the big fights, in the big arenas," DeGale told insidethegames.

"I've served my apprenticeship as a professional. I've proved I'm a 12-round championship fighter now. But there's a lot of politics in boxing. The shit that goes on is crazy, especially the power some people have in the game.

"It's not always who you beat but who you know.

"Pro boxing's not just a sport, it's the hardest business in the world. Compared to it amateur boxing's a bit of a game. Two points, move, gone.

"Professional boxing ain't like that. Man, it's mentally as well as physically tougher, working inside, smaller gloves."

DeGale switched promoters following the Groves defeat, moving from Warren to Hennessy.

"I'm OK with Mick but we've got to get the foot down. Glow is a very nice arena and the punters work up a great atmosphere.

"Everything else in my world is cool. I'm finally over the knee injury that's been bugging me since I banged it badly against a table. My home life is great. But I love boxing and I've got to step up.

"I get a lot of stick. I read and hear people saying I'm flash and cocky and it does hurt a bit. Maybe it's just me being me. But the people who know me realise I'm a genuine, humble, down-to-earth boy."

James DeGale has his sights set on challenging Sakio Bika for the world title


The hope is a DeGale force win over Davis can lead to a challenge for Sakio Bika's WBC world title. The Australian/Cameroonian stopped Davis in ten rounds last year.

"If I can do a quicker job on Davis it will be a real statement. I'm ranked fifth by the WBC at the moment and a big win here should put me in line to challenge Bika."

A fraction of the 20,000 who will watch Froch v Groves will be at a the Glow, a relative boxing backwater which accommodates only 3,000.

But DeGale is quick to point out one significant advantage: terrestrial television. "I'll be live on Channel 5 and that means an audience of a million or more, not just few thousand."

Curiously, DeGale has never really hit boxing's popularity charts despite doing the business in Beijing. "People say I'm greedy, that I'm always thinking about money, that I've messed up my career. But they don't understand. I love boxing, but it's hard, it's a short career and I want to get paid as much as I can and get out with my faculties intact.

"I tell young fighters who train with me: 'Get in there, make some money and run.' Which almost never happens. Not even if you turn up for your first day of work with a medal round your neck.

"But another Olympics comes around, new medallists arrive and they start taking the limelight.

Anthony Joshua has made an impressive start to his professional career under
Eddie Hearn's Matchroom banner


Joshua, the super-heavyweight champion who, together with lightweight Campbell, has made such an impressive pro start under Eddie Hearn's Matchroom banner. Big Josh has his third bout in London this Thursday (November 14) and already looks the business.

The Olympic title can mean a goldmine as well as a gold medal - for some. But converting that precious piece of into a world title has proved embarrassingly elusive for the Brits.

These are the careers stats to date of the seven who have stood atop the Olympic rostrum.

• Terry Spinks (flyweight, 1956): British featherweight champion; 41 wins, seven defeats, one draw

• Dick McTaggart (lightweight, 1956): Stayed amateur, won bronze in 1960

• Chris Finnegan (middleweight, 1968): British, European and Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion, world title challenger (lost to Bob Foster); 29 wins, seven defeats, one draw

• Audley Harrison (super-heavyweight, 2000): European heavyweight champion, world title challenger (lost to David Haye), 31 wins, seven defeats

• James DeGale (middleweight, 2008): British and European middleweight champion; 16 wins, one defeat

• Luke Campbell (bantamweight, 2012): Three wins, no defeats

• Anthony Joshua (super-heavyweight, 2012): Two wins, no defeats

DeGale, Campbell and Joshua all remain hopeful that they will break the mould.

But are there any among Rob McCracken's prospective runners for Rio who might succeed them in 2016?

Anthony Fowler could present a significant medal hope for Britain at Rio 2016


Although Euro flyweight champ Andrew Selby got a bronze in the recent World Championships, the likeliest lad might be Anthony Fowler, 22-year-old middleweight who is the cousin of the former England and Liverpool striker Robbie Fowler.

Known at GB Boxing's Sheffield headquarters as "The Mersey Machine" because of his fierce training regime also had to settle for bronze in Kazakhstan but only after being forced to withdraw from the semis with a broken hand.

McCracken - who incidentally will be in Froch's corner against Groves but wasn't allowed to similarly minister to the Brits in Kazakhstan because of AIBA's ludicrously archaic ban on pro coaches - believes he may well have gone on to claim the gold.

This would have made him only Britain's second world amateur champion after Frankie Gavin.

So can he now emulate DeGale and Finnegan and win an Olympic middleweight title?

If he does, at least he can absorb these words which comfort the currently frustrated DeGale. "That gold medal is always there. Whatever happens I'm always 'James DeGale, Olympic champion'."

Alan Hubbard is a sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.