After being dispatched to the Olympic Stadium last weekend and finding myself halfway down The Mall this time around, I have been pretty lucky in my first two weekends at insidethegames - with two opportunities to see London in party mood and wallowing in post-Olympic nostalgia.

Yet while the Sainsbury's Anniversary Games was in many ways a carbon copy of 2012, with the likes of Bolt, Farah and Weir enabling fans to dust off their British memorabilia and refamiliarise themselves with Olympic mania, the Prudential RideLondon Cycling Grand Prix signified even more than that.

By blending top-class elite races with recreational rides for all levels of ability, it showed off both sides of the all-important Olympic legacy question and further boosted a sport which is pedalling ever closer to the mainstream of Britain's sporting consciousness.

As well as elite male, female, hand-cycling and youth races which all finished in exciting sprint finishes on The Mall, London also played host to a 100 mile race for amateur riders beginning at ridiculous a-clock on Sunday morning, as well as a world record attempt - narrowly missed - for the longest single parade of bikes. Riders of all ages and backgrounds took part, eager for the rarest of opportunities to ride on closed roads in the nation's capital.

The atmosphere was a blend of Union Jack wearing patriots eager to get a single glimpse of an Olympic hero, alongside hardcore cycling enthusiasts clad in lycra and club jerseys. In a further sign of how major cycling is becoming it was interesting to note how large that latter group has become, with groups of youngsters having in depth conversations about equipment and riders which left an ignorant insidethegames reporter for one desperately out of his depth.

The streets were lined with fans eager to glimpse both elite and recreational riders




A second successive British Tour de France victory in 2013 was one cycling event I did not miss out on but, after Chris Froome's triumph on the Champs Elysee, it seemed wonderfully ironic that a Frenchman should win on the Mall. The absence of Britain's top stars was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the day, yet with both Mark Cavendish, in Denmark, and Sir Bradley Wiggins, in Poland, enjoying wins over the weekend, and with Froome in the midst of a well-earned break, they all had good excuses and Sir Bradley will certainly compete on these shores in the Tour of Britain next month.

London-Surrey Classic race director Mick Bennett admitted that it is hard to attract the biggest names first time around although he remained very hopeful of an even brighter future. "It's always difficult in year one as lot of teams are committed to other races - the tours of Poland and Denmark for example," he explained before adding: "we've got the BBC on board, an iconic course going past Buckingham Palace and some of the best riders here, so we're very positive. We have a five-year commitment to this event and want it to become a race where all the top teams have to compete."

Yet the men's elite race was only one of the weekend's many highlights. A thrilling hand-cycling competition demonstrated once again that, as with the Anniversary Games, Paralympic sport is jumping on the legacy bandwagon as much as if not more than able-bodied versions. The raised profile of disability sport has indeed been the most obvious post-Olympic development in Britain.

After a week which has seen the launch of a campaign to host a women's Tour de France alongside the men's race, it was pleasing to hear the women's race achieve the loudest roar of the weekend as Laura Trott showed once again that beneath her bubbly exterior lies one of the toughest characters in British sport.

It is one year to the day since Britain won their first ever Olympic slalom canoeing title, and took silver in the same event for good measure, and what better way to mark the occasion than by taking to the course where it all happened with the men that made it happen 365 days ago as the Games fever swept the nation.

Etienne Stott and Tim Baillie stormed to gold here at Lee Valley White Water Centre this time last year in the canoe slalom C2 as the only pair not to pick up any penalties on their way around the course, followed by compatriots Richard Hounslow and David Florence who made it a GB one-two and took the silver medal in what became GB Canoeing's most successful Olympic campaign.

I joined the Olympic stars as they launched two new white water activities at the centre - one of which I was lucky enough to try out - and revisited the podium they stood upon last summer.

"It's funny, I guess in some ways it's fairly undramatic, especially the way we arrived here this morning and it's raining," says Baillie on returning to the scene of the finest moment in his career on its anniversary.

"It's hard to picture the stands now compared to what is now a much more functional venue, there's people rafting, people just walking around and checking out the course, so yeah, it's cool to see that it's growing into what you hoped it would be, it was really crucial for our sport and it's a really good thing to see the venue being maximised, it would've been a real shame if it hadn't been as busy as it is, so it's cool to see it bustling. There's so much building and development work going on, it's really positive."

Lee Valley White Water Centre was the only London 2012 venue which was open to the public in the Olympic year, reopening on September 8 that year, less than a month after the Games concluded. This is believed to be the fastest ever post-Games opening of a newly-built venue in the modern Olympic era.

But work here is far from complete. A £6.3 million ($9.6 million/€7.3 million) development project kicked off in February this year, which will see the creation of a state-of-the-art gym facility and physiotherapy centre, meeting rooms and offices for the British Canoe Union (BCU), additional changing rooms, additional car parking and toilet facilities, an outdoor classroom and a new pavilion overlooking the course, but the facilities will remain open throughout the duration of the improvement work which is expected to be completed early next year.

Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott became Britain's first Olympic slalom canoeing gold medallists one year ago today

As talk of the legacy of the London 2012 Games dominates headlines in the nation, Lee Valley White Water Centre is certainly one of the venues from the Games where you can see it in action. From work groups to school groups and elite performers to complete novices, there are people from all walks of life making use of the facilities in different ways. But what has inspired such success and so many people to try white water activities at the centre?

"I guess the [London 2012] performances probably help but really it's the venue and the incredible smart-thinking that was put into building the venue and making sure it was for the future and not just for one event, I think that's something that's not always been done that well in our sport at the Olympics," believes Baillie.

Fights broke out at London's Victoria Station one day last week while a large crowd stood by and watched. But it was quite legit. Young boxers scrapped in a ring on the concourse to publicise a joint initiative by Network Rail and Sport England, who have invested £35,000 ($54,000/€40,000) to assist London Amateur Boxing Association with the training of coaches and teachers in clubs and schools.

Among the 30 from four London clubs enthusiastically swapping punches were kids aged from ten upwards, a healthy indication of how boxing is enjoying a genuine legacy from the Olympics.

How ironic, then, that this week England's best schoolboy boxers, and their coaches, have been prevented from competing in the European Championships in Dublin by a blanket ban imposed on the Amatuer Boxing Association of England (ABAE) by world governing body AIBA over an alleged technical breach of regulations.

It seems a spiteful move which surely harms only those whose interests AIBA is supposed to nourish-the boxers. And one which its President, Dr C K Wu, who aspires to head the International Olympic Committee, should be embarrassed, indeed, even ashamed.

Did anyone in AIBA's hierarchy give a second's thought to the disappointment of those youngsters who had trained hard for months, their parents who had saved up to pay for the trip and the coaches and trainers who had put so much into preparing the kids for a tournament that might have been the highlight of their sporting lives. I doubt it.


A call from angry lady named Saphire Lee, secretary of England's Eastern Counties Amateur Boxing Association, who had a number of schoolboys in the contingent, sums it up. "Please tell this Dr Wu that these kids are devastated, distraught," she says. "Some have been in tears. They had been looking forward so these Championships so much and they don't understand why someone should be playing play petty politics with their lives!" Nor me.

Message delivered.

I understand the ABAE had even tried to get permission for the team to participate under the banner of the British Olympic Association, but this was declined.

If AIBA were intent on punitive action why didn't they simply suspend those individuals they maintain had breached their rules instead of clamping down with this unnecessarily vindictive ban which hits only the boxers themselves.

The Patron of the Schools ABA is the Labour Peer Lord Tom Pendry, himself a former Services boxing champ, who assures me he won't let the matter rest. Nor, I suspect, will Britain's Sports Minister Hugh Robertson.

It is a pity AIBA did not have a presence at Victoria Station where they would have witnessed just how much boxing means to so many youngsters, and what a force for good it is in our society.

For instance, Network Rail is teaming up with the London ABA to educate youngsters across the capital about railway safety. The partnership will combine sport, recreation and fitness with information about staying safe on the tracks and the importance of never taking chances on the railway.

Over the next 12 months more than 800 young people will take part in Network Rail and London amateur boxing events in schools across the city.

Every youngster taking part in the scheme will be given a workbook - written by boxing coach Q Shillingford - was recently named Amateur Boxing Community Coach of the Year - which includes boxing information as well as vital safety messages which will help them stay safe on the railway.

Such initiative is to be applauded but what a travesty that this stupid ban should put a dampener on it.


At the same time, across the city, Anthony Joshua, whose Finchley Amateur Boxing Club coach Shaun Murphy was among those encouraging boxing's "railway children" was formalising his decision to turn pro with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom organisation.

The defection of Joshua, currently British boxing's biggest asset, to the professionals will be as much a body blow to Wu as to Team GB. He must feel aggrieved that London's Olympic super-heavyweight champion has elected to take the orthodox route into the professional game, rejecting overtures to join his fledgling APB (AIBA Pro Boxing) which launches shortly.

Wu had ardently wooed Joshua, hoping he would become a flagship fighter in a revolutionary tournament which offers substantial prize money and is an integral part of his grand design as head of AIBA (now known as the International Boxing Association), which controls what used to be amateur boxing, ultimately to open up the Olympic Games to all professionals as long as they compete under their jurisdiction.

It has not been a good week for Wu, for an even bigger setback is the shock move by arguably the world's finest amateur, the Ukrainian Vasyl Lomachenko, also to reject APB and team up alongside Manny Pacquiao in the American promoter Bob Arum's Top Rank organisation.

The double Olympic and world champion was the stellar attraction in last season's World Boxing Series (WSB) and AIBA were planning a massive marketing campaign around him for his APB debut.


Some consolation is that Fred Evans, the 2012 welterweight silver medallist, has joined fellow Welshman Andrew Selby, the European flyweight champion, in APB, whose formation has disaffected African, American, British and many western European boxing federations as, with WSB, it appears to be offering a fast-track to the Olympics to the detriment of countries whose boxers do not compete.

Presumably had Selby and Evans been English they would be subject to the AIBA ban and, if still in place, would be barred from appearing in in APB. Crazy or what?

But Joshua, echoing the sentiments of Luke Campbell, the bantamweight gold medallist and now his Matchroom stablemate, says of APB: "It's new, it's not solid yet. There's no TV exposure, and if I'm going to be fighting as a professional I might as well do the real thing."

Such sentiments will not please the autocratic Wu who earlier this year arbitrarily removed the word "amateur" from boxing's lexicon. All national associations have been requested to remove the A-word, including the Amateur Boxing Association of England which so far has not done so.

And last week it once again felt the wrath of Wu, already displeased by Team GB's withdrawal from WSB where AIBA are understood to have subsided the franchise by some £1.8 million ($2.7 million/€2.1 million), AIBA suspended the organisation for what it termed "a serious breach" of their regulations as a result of Sport England's intervention in the development of ABAE's new Constitution.

Until this is resolved English boxers are effectively banned from competing in all international events, including the World Championships and Commonwealth Games. .

ABAE chair Richard Caborn has now formally submitted a 60-page rebuttal of AIBA's allegations to their Disciplinary Committee. He tells insidethegmes he hopes the issue can be resolved next week before more young British boxers are deprived of the opportunity of international competition.

Three years ago AIBA took similar action after Paul King, then ABAE's chief executive, unsuccessfully challenged Wu for the AIBA Presidency.

Intriguingly, King is now back in the thick of things. He helped orchestrate last week's event, and has has raised some £300,000 ($460,000/€345,000) for the London ABA, again working in tandem with ABAE President Keith Walters, who received an OBE this year for his lifelong contribution to the sport.


And Wu now finds himself squaring up to to boxing's other King. "I am shocked and appalled," roars the 82-year-old Don of the fight game from his Florida eyrie, his famous electric -shock hair standing even more on end at the thought of it Wu's intention to take over world boxing in all its forms and professionalise the Olympics.

"This proposal is not only implausible but harmful, immoral and highly dangerous. While in team sports such as basketball professionals and amateurs competing against each other at worst can result in an embarrassment in boxing a professional fighting an amateur in the Olympics could result in a injury, even death."

But Wu remains unfazed, declaring: "It has always been AIBA's mission to govern the sport of boxing worldwide in all its forms."

Actually there is much to admire in Wu. One respects his courage, drive and determination even if his ultimate cause is misguided.

Of course he is right in believing that ideally boxing should have one umbrella body instead of the WBC, WBA, IBF,WBO, WBU, IBO and his own AIBA (aka IBA) etc juggling together like pieces of minestrone in an unpalatable alphabet soup. But disparate commercial interests dictate this can never happen.

In many aspects he has been a power for good, ridding the sport of corruption, notably in the notorious judging system, bringing Cuba into WSB and getting women's boxing Olympic status.

And I am all for letting them punch-for-pay. But instead of fighting this inevitably a losing battle with the pros he should be working with them..

Wu wants to "positively impact society" by seeking sport's top job as the next President of the IOC, "I am ready to step up. The thought and concept to develop the IOC and Olympic movement is the core principle of my candidature."

Wu says that if his he is successful, he will promote education as a way to combat the scourges of doping, gambling, match-fixing and violence in sports.

Well, good, luck with that.

The 66-year-old Taiwanese tycoon, who professes to be an Anglophile, has a big fight on his hands if he is to be crowned king of the rings, as well as the ring, and playing pugilistic politics with kids' dreams won't help his cause among the IOC sceptics.

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

Government, any Government, wants sound bites - a quick win which shows the public just how well their new policy has worked. The headline which vindicates their work.

And so far, where legacy is concerned, there are plenty of these good news stories. The UK economy has seen a £9.9 billion ($15.1 billion/€11.5 billion) boost in trade and investment, one in three foreigners are now more likely to visit the UK on holiday and according to the Active People Survey 1.4 million more people are taking part in sport every week than before we won the bid.

Indeed our own Sports Club Survey - the largest ever survey of British sports clubs – shows that adult membership of clubs up and down the country has risen by 20.6 per cent since 2011. So too with youngsters, an 8.4 per cent rise in members in the last year alone.

This is all really positive stuff. And with some of these demonstrable benefits clearly a direct result of the Games it'd be easy for Government, to think "job done".

But legacy isn't about sound bites. It's not about political gains. It's about us - the British people.

This is our once in a lifetime opportunity to make a fundamental change to the way we live our lives.

This legacy must be about embedding physical activity into the lives of more people than ever before - forging a new healthier, happier world for our children and our children's children.

And with this in mind it's not "job done" for Government or for us. It's "good start, what next?"

We need an effective, coherent long-term school sport policy, which accommodates a broad curriculum including both competitive and non-competitive sport. The Government's two-year primary sport premium is a good start but securing sustainable funding is crucial if we are to capture the excitement the Games created amongst youngsters and turn it into something tangible.


We need to make sport and physical activity a part of everyday lives. Cycling has become inextricably linked with the morning commute for millions of Britons through a greater awareness at a town planning level, increased exposure, political advocacy and the sheer enthusiasm people have shown for it. This must be carefully nurtured and encouraged, along with walking and running, so that we begin to see the kind of cultures that have thrived in countries like Denmark and Holland fostered in the UK.

We need to make sport and physical activity more accessible for all. The Paralympics worked wonders in challenging perceptions but only 18.2 per cent of disabled adults in England play sport once a week. Mainstream sports clubs need to be better equipped and clubs guided so that we can accommodate the burgeoning interest.

We need more volunteers. The Games Makers - such an unexpected success story of the Games - gave people a sense of what volunteering in sport could be. But we need so many more at club level. This is a legacy that everyone can contribute to, and it's time that we rolled up our sleeves and joined the near two million people who volunteer week in week out in England alone.


And crucially, we need recognition from policy-makers that sport and physical activity provision is not a drain on resources but instead a sound long-term investment. If local authorities are forced to cut their sport provision, by as much as 40 per cent in some areas if reports are to be believed, this country may save money in the short term. But future generations - perhaps even your generation - will be hit hard by this short-sightedness and health and social costs will spiral to a point which we can't reach.

We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic, our population is ageing and in the time it takes Usain Bolt to run 100 metres the NHS spends £10,000 ($15,000/€11,500)in treating preventable illness. This will only get worse. No, sport, recreation and physical activity aren't panaceas. But the research base behind their value in preventative treatment is compelling.

We've made a great start on the legacy from the Games and roots are beginning to take hold. But it's not job done, it's what next?

One year on from the start of the greatest show on earth, I find myself sitting in a hotel lobby in Lusaka, Zambia, feeling a long way away from the Sainsbury's Anniversary Games just about to start in the Olympic Stadium in East London, let alone the bell ringing by Bradley Wiggins this time last year.

Yet my reason for being here is very much linked to the work that helped make last summer possible, namely the commercial sponsorship programme headed by Charlie Wijeratna that generated a little over £700 million ($1 billion/€810 million) in domestic sponsorship revenue for London 2012 and which was recognised by Kantar Media with the Sport Business Achievement of the Year Award for 2011.

Earlier today, I participated in a workshop for the Zambian Amateur Athletics Association (ZAAA) to advise them how to build a sponsorship programme of their own for their showpiece events, most notably the Lusaka Marathon. Next week, I will be running a similar workshop, this time for the National Olympic Committee of Zambia (NOCZ) and all of their constituent National Federations.


Whilst of vastly different scale and ambition to last summer's festivities, the principles and processes of a sponsorship programme remain remarkably similar and I am here, with the support of International Inspiration, UK Sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the Vodafone Foundation to name but a few, to pass on some of the processes and models that we used, as well as the lessons that we learnt, in the UK between 2006 and 2011.

For instance, understanding the potential sponsor's business objectives is critical and the "5 C model" that we used at London 2012 to talk about the value of sponsorship is valid no matter what the scale or territory: winning new Customers, attracting and retaining Colleagues, benefitting the Community and behaving in a Corporately responsible way, all whilst generating a return on investment for the Company, chime in any market at any time.

Similarly, whilst NOCZ may not have Lord Coe to write a letter and thereby get a foot in the door with potential sponsors, they do have high profile Ministers and sportspersons capable of having a similar impact locally. 


These are relatively early days for sports marketing in Zambia, certainly as far as the majority of Olympic sports go, and the preponderance of football coverage and marketing mean that it will be far from straight forward to attract and retain sponsors here.

That said, the Olympic Rings remain one of the most recognised brands throughout the world no matter what the affluence and literacy levels and the opportunity to exploit this asset for the good of sport in general is there to be grasped.

On that note, one thing that has struck me as especially different to my experiences with London 2012 is the apparent lack of data on which to base a coherent commercial strategy. Whilst I didn't necessarily expect to find the wealth of data available that we had about, for instance, our brand awareness and the companies with which we were able to secure deals, I did expect to find more data about the relative size of each of the Olympic sports in Zambia, such as the number of clubs, players, referees and coaches.

The seeming absence of this structure and reporting presents both a significant challenge for the marketeers here and a significant opportunity for market research companies I believe. Which, stereotypically, mirrors the expectation that the opportunities here, in a country where income has quadrupled this millennium and yet more than half of the population are under 15, are just as noticeable as the challenges.


This no doubt influenced the IOC when they made the decision to build the first Olympic Youth Development Centre in the world, opened in 2010 by its President Jacques Rogge himself, in Lusaka; an experiment that remains locally popular and yet unproved in its national, let alone, international merit.

With huge outside investment such as this and money from the Chinese, as well as Britain's Department for International Development - currently investing £150 million ($230 million/€175 million) in human and social development in Zambia - as well as a burgeoning population, the sporting landscape here will
change beyond all recognition in a short space of time.

That is, providing the opportunities are seized and the challenges, such as financial transparency, overcome. A willing and increasingly affluent market awaits sponsors who can
successfully align their brands with the sports that benefit from this investment and, precisely because this is a developing market, the long term benefits for such success are beyond even the scope of our relatively short-term ambitions for London 2012.

Mark Scholey worked for London 2012 for eight years, starting in October 2004 while they were still bidding. Among the roles he held was commercial manager and Torch Relays programme manager. He now works as a consultant for Sport in Action. To find out more click here.

Earlier this month, I visited Oklahoma City for the World Cup of Softball, hosted by the Amateur Softball Association (ASA) with USA Softball and sanctioned by the International Softball Federation (ISF), the eighth edition of the annual invitational tournament in the city featuring five of the most talented softball teams in the world battling it out for the World Cup crown.

As a Briton, I have seen first-hand the meteoric rise in the profile of baseball and softball in my home country in recent years, with teams springing up in towns and cities across the country and with the opening of the UK's first purpose-built baseball and softball facility at Farnham Park in Slough earlier this summer.

This is not the time to be greeting an Aussie with "G'day, sport" unless you want a broken nose.

Alas, there are now many more bad days than g'days for Australian sport. Last weekend's Test Match debacle, leaving them 2-0 down to England in cricket's Ashes series was indicative of the malaise that has struck down a nation, causing it to lose both pride and the plot.

Over a dozen years Austalia have gradually slid out of the sports super power league.

Once right on top they are now well and truly Down Under.

At the turn of the century, Australian sport was the envy of every nation throughout the world, particularly to us in Britain.

The Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 were an overwhelming triumph, with the host nation coming fourth in the medal table: a remarkable achievement for an island with a population of just 22 million people.

Just 13 years ago the Olympic Games was not the only sporting arena in which the Australians were excelling. Their national teams were World Cup holders in rugby union and rugby league; their cricket team had won the World Cup and also held the Ashes, while Pat Rafter had held, albeit briefly, the world number one tennis ranking. Australian sporting greats were superstars the world over.

Cathy Freeman was their Jess Ennis, the dominant face of the Sydney Games. Ian Thorpe was the greatest swimmer the world had seen. Shane Warne was the best bowler of all time and the Australian Institute of Sport was the envy of the sporting sporting world.


Move on to 2012 and Australia suffered their worst recent Olympic performance, finishing tenth in the medal table with just seven golds, less than half the 16 they collected in Sydney, and just two places above Britain's competitive contingent from Yorkshire.

It is over a decade since Australia had a men's winner at Wimbledon, (Lleyton Hewitt), a domain they once dominated; 23 years since a woman (Evonne Goolagong Cawley). Greg Norman was the last Aussie to win The Open golf championship, in 1993.

Gone too are the days when Australian ruled the pool. An angry media dubbed 2012 a "disaster" for swimming after just one gold medal, in the women's freestyle relay, their first Games without an individual swimming gold since Montreal 1976.

Cycling, track and rowing were equally disappointing.

"We are on a bit of a downer at the moment," admits their greatest-ever swimmer Ian Thorpe. "We set ourselves lofty heights but just being an Australian won't win you a medal any more."

The Thorpedo, five times an Olympic gold medallist, adds: "We've probably always assumed that our programmes are actually better than they really are. People have given us too much credit for programmes which they think exist but really don't.

"For instance, I doubt we are doing a good enough job in the identification of young athletes. And in Australia we have become too accustomed to being too successful. We've been too complacent and we have layers of bureacracy in sport which detract from where some of the performances should go. We have get back to basics."

Ominously he warns:" There are lessons to be learned from what has happened in Australia to Team GB in the future."

Perhaps the most important one is not to cut funding. After Sydney 2000 Australia took the opposite course to Britain, where we have invested heavily in sport.

In Australia, the cuts have led to Australia's best coaches going abroad, not least to the UK. The brain drain syndrome.

Moreover, earlier this year a Crime Commission report found that doping and match-fixing were present in a variety of sports within Australia, while also uncovering links between sports administrators and organised crime.


According to the World Cup-winning England rugby coach and British Olympic Association sports director Sir Clive Woodward Australian sport is also disfigured by indiscipline.

In an illuminating article London's Daily Mail he writes: "It has been an extraordinary few weeks for Australian sport and one that brings into sharp focus the alarming decline of a great sporting nation.

"There have been embarrassing episodes of indiscipline - from David Warner throwing a punch at Joe Root to Digby Ioane failing to inform the Wallabies he was due in court on an assault charge.

"We have seen rugby sides in Australia celebrating 60-point defeats because they gave the Lions a 'good fight', displaying the same Corinthian spirit for which they used to mock the British.

"Then came the astonishing decision to sack cricket coach Mickey Arthur and replace him with Darren Lehmann a fortnight before the Ashes.

"All these problems stem from the same issue - coaching. Australia has lost its affinity with the most crucial ingredient for success.

"This is a nation blessed with wonderful athletes but they are being let down by an army of administrators who have no understanding of the coaching process, and some of the coaches seem more concerned with keeping their jobs than winning. "

Woodward says that while he lived for a time in Australia in the eighties he travelled frequently to the Institute of Sport in Canberra, a facility built with the sole purpose of "achieving supremacy in sport", and realised Australia was so far ahead.

"Sporting success was high on the political agenda. Back home in 1989, I realised we in Britain were just as passionate about sport, but we had not put in place a process of excellence. We have since changed for the better and surpassed the Aussies in many respects. This, I fear, is because Australia has forgotten the value of coaching.

"To win in sport you need world-class athletes and world-class coaches. The support structure is missing.

"Australia had a dreadful Olympics last summer. The reaction was to cut funding for athletics and swimming by 3.8 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively. They redesigned programmes with an emphasis on 'team building' and addressing 'psychological issues' for athletes.

"So many experts tell me, 'Concentrate on measuring performance and winning will take care of itself'. That is a brilliant excuse for coming second, which was never the Australian way. It is about winning, plain and simple.

"I was surprised by the attitude in Australia after the first Lions Test. Australia had just been beaten and nobody was upset because it had been a good game. That's not the Australian mentality I remember.

"But perhaps the most telling problem is that Australian sport has lost the art of handling mavericks.

"Great teams are made of great individuals. Mavericks are nothing new in Australian sport - think Shane Warne and David Campese - but now if you do not fit into the system you are exiled and labelled a trouble-maker."


After 2012 the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) President John Coates blamed the failure of his country's athletes on a shortage of Government funding and a lack of compulsory sport in schools.

The Australian government allocated nearly £220 million ($338 million/€255 million) to sports programmes in its 2010 budget, but the £35 million ($54 million/€40 million) earmarked for Olympics-focused high performance sports was only half what the AOC had lobbied for.

Britain appears, for now at least, to be avoiding this pitfall. Funding for elite sport won't be not be cut over the next four years, guaranteeing £500 million ($846 million/€638 million) for Olympic and Paralympic sport ahead of Rio 2016.

However Ian Thorpe is right in saying there a sombre warning for Britain post 2012. Australia's is a predicament to which we should pay close attention if we do not want to find ourselves in a similar position in a decade's time.

Sport was Australia's advert to the rest of the world, riding high on the back of the Sydney Games in 2000, almost as glorious for them as London's was for Team GB. But look at them now.

Olympic also-rans, savaged by the British and Irish Lions and now struggling on an embarrassingly sticky wicket in the best-of-five Test series.

If England retain the Ashes, which Australia desperately need to restore their battered sporting pride, it will be their fourth victory in five series. Woodward reckons Australian cricket has virtually given up on the idea of winning them.

Of course it is easy to kick a nation when it id down but I happen to love Australia, and the Aussies.

So I'd be more than happy to see a return to the days when there was an abundance of high-spirited sporting wizards of Oz. World sport needs them.

I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but "C'mon Aussies, c'mon!" Starting with those Ashes, let's see you make a fight of it.

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.

You would never guess from its lawns, palm-trees and pathways fringed with bright pink blooms, but the International Olympic Academy (IOA) has been living through difficult days.

Inaugurated in 1961 and located just a golf buggy ride from ancient Olympia, the IOA has made concrete modern Olympic founder Pierre de Coubertin's vision for an academic centre for the study of the Movement.

You would think that such a mission would make it sacrosanct.

Yet, as director Dionyssis Gangas explained to me during a tour of the premises, the European financial crisis that has hit Greece so hard might have brought the institution to its knees.

Until three years ago, according to Gangas, the finances of the academy worked as follows:

On the one hand, there was an operating budget of €1 million (£859,000/$1.3 million), drawn 50 per cent from the Greek state, 20 per cent from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and 30 per cent from "various activities"; on the other there was the cost of maintaining the premises, which he says was the responsibility of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC).


These maintenance costs came to a further €1.2 million (£1 million/$1.6 million), but only, as Gangas gives me to understand, because of high personnel costs stemming from the HOC's status as a public interest entity.

At this point, with the Greek public sector severely strapped for cash, a deal was struck whereby the IOA itself took over responsibility for the bulk of maintenance, which it has been able to accomplish much more efficiently, while the HOC's contribution was cut to €300,000 (£258,000/$396,000).

Gangas puts today's budget at around €1.5 million (£1.3 million/$1.9 million), with the rest of it derived as follows: €100,000 (£86,000/$132,000) from the Greek state, €100-€150,000 (£86,000-£129,000/$132,000-198,000) from academic activities, €400,000 (£343,000/$527,000) from sponsorship, including contributions from the cultural centre of Azerbaijan and the Greek lottery, and €450,000 (£386,000/$593,000) from the IOC, which, he says, has agreed, in addition, to make good any deficit.

"If it weren't for [President] Jacques Rogge and his colleagues at the IOC, the academy would have been forced to close," Gangas reveals.

As part of the new way of doing things, the academy has been opened for the use of outside educational partners much more frequently than it used to be.

Yale, Harvard, Georgetown and St Andrews have all taken advantage of the opportunity to organise symposia or summer schools.

The understanding is that courses should have some Olympic content.

Since 2009, the academy has hosted a two-year master's degree programme on Olympic studies for 30 students a year.


Would-be students must apply through their National Olympic Committee by March of any given year, with the course starting in September.

The fee, which Gangas says includes accommodation and food, is set at €3,000 (£2,500/$3,900) for the two years.

For all his gratitude to the IOC, Gangas says that the IOA's future is "still a little uncertain because of the general economic crisis in Greece.

"This means we have no hope of the level of state support we had in the past for the foreseeable future.

"And it means we are dependent on attracting new corporate and individual sponsors to ensure our survival."

Looking out over the idyllic grounds towards the ancient stadium where the Olympics began in 776BC, it comes as a shock to realise that this unique place of learning might conceivably have had to close its doors.

Baron de Coubertin's heart, laid to rest, in accordance with his wishes, on one of Olympia's tranquil pathways, would surely have been broken.

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.

The team have performed extremely well and I am impressed with the level of competition here at the 2013 European Youth Olympic Festival in the Netherlands. The way the athletes have applied themselves to their sports shows how incredibly dedicated they are and that is illustrated by the amazing results we have had. Finishing second on the medal table is an incredible achievement and something I am very proud of.

It has been a fantastic opportunity for me as a first-time Chef and I am extremely proud to have been given the opportunity by the British Olympic Association. I think it is a great step forward to include retired Olympic medallists in events such as these. The athletes are at a stage in their careers where any positive influence could impact their senior careers so to be part of this step is very rewarding.

It has also been good for me, the athletes and the coaches to gain experience of other sports, to watch and talk to them to see if we can learn anything to take into our own events.


I've found my role as Chef has been particularly important in talking to athletes who haven't necessarily done as well as they would have hoped. It is inevitable at any event that some athletes will be upset with their performance, but I have tried to talk to them and tell them that you often learn more in adversity than in success. It has been a great chance for all the athletes and coaches to experience what can be the difficult Olympic environment.

That's where being a former athlete is helpful because they know I have been through it before myself and I can empathise with them. The other side is that when they have performed well I can understand the effort and hard work they have put in and they recognise the fact that I know how difficult it is and see the effect it can have on their performance.


I have been to all the events Team GB has competed in and they have all been incredible to watch. The girls' road race on Thursday was brilliant and I was really proud of Abby Mae Parkinson – she rode so hard to enable Grace Garner and Charlotte Broughton to get medals. That a 15-year-old can sacrifice their own chances in that way for her teammates is a real illustration of the teamwork that all the athletes here have shown.

The real highlight for me though has been the way the sports have integrated. The small teams have mixed well with the larger teams, they have really understood what the Olympics are all about and are learning all the time. We work as "One Team GB", and we really have. Athletes from five different sports have come together and over the course of a week have formed a real team environment.

This is typified by all the sports coming down to watch the final sessions at the gymnastics and in pool this afternoon. Everyone else has finished and to see them cheering on their team mates from the stands was fantastic.


Last night was the Closing Ceremony and it was great for the athletes to get the opportunity to celebrate Team GB's success. Whilst I have been to Olympic Closing Ceremonies before I never had the chance to march in the Athletes' Parade, at the Opening Ceremony, so it was a first for me, and it was surprisingly emotional. There were a lot of parents in the stands, so for the athletes to share that experience with them was nice.

I can't believe we are now on our way home, the week has flown by. Someone asked if I would consider doing something like this again and the answer was absolutely yes. It's a fantastic role to have done, and I would do anything to be involved again. Giving back to sport, however I can, is very important for me.

Sarah Gosling is a British double Olympic sailing champion. She was Team GB Chef de Mission for the 2013 European Youth Olympic Festival in Utrecht.

Monte Carlo awoke this morning to the persistent rumble and crackle of thunder interspersed with stagey sheet lightning. It rained, hard. And the muggy air of the previous evening was cleared.

It would be nice to think the impending IAAF Diamond League meeting here will have a similarly restorative effect upon world athletics, which has swirled with rumour, suspicion and speculation since Sunday's slew of doping positives involving, among others, two of the sport's pre-eminent sprinters in Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay.

Gay, who has freely admitted a transgression although it is as yet unclear what errant substance is involved, was to have raced here. He can't now. Meanwhile, Powell's manager, Paul Doyle, has defended his man by implicating the trainer who has been working with the sprinter since May, Chris Xuereb, accusing him of providing supplements which have led to the positive test. Xuereb also began working at the same time with Powell's fellow Jamaican Sherone Simpson, the Beijing 2008 Olympic 100 metres silver medallist, who also faces suspension following an adverse test.

Asafa Powell, whose positive doping test was revealed on Sunday, insists he has never taken any illegal substance knowingly and now his manager has blamed supplements supplied by a new trainer

Both athletes deny knowingly taking any illegal substance. Meanwhile, Xuereb, as you might expect, denies giving them any illegal substance, adding: "I am extremely disappointed that these athletes have chosen to blame me for their own violations."

Xuereb says his main role with Powell and Simpson was "to provide soft tissue massage therapy as well as nutritional help".

All very confusing. All very worrying. All very familiar.

Justin Gatlin, the Athens 2004 Olympic 100m champion who was subsequently banned for testosterone and is now back on the circuit – and fourth fastest in the 2013 world lists for the distance, maintained that his positive test had come as a result of a masseuse with a grudge deliberately using a cream on him that contained banned substances.

That claim was disputed. Naturally. And it had no effect in terms of mitigating his punishment. 

Given the number of incidents there have clearly been misjudgements rather than deliberate cheating in terms of sports people testing positive – not just in athletics, but across the board – you would hope that those operating at elite level would have everything safe and sorted. But this is clearly not the case.

I flew in to Nice airport yesterday with three happy Jamaican athletes due to compete tomorrow  at Monaco's Stade Louis II – even though that count went down to two happy athletes when one discovered their luggage had not turned up – and we were delayed in getting to our transport while one of them sought out the massage table they had brought with them. The idea that one or any of these young people could be made very unhappy, for a long time, because of a mistake that might be made by a trainer was depressing indeed.

But once more we come to the hard fact that, while mistakes are made, such errors also have the possibility of being cited as an excuse for real misdemeanours. There is no real way of knowing.

Years ago, when I was writing a book with Britain's Olympic 400m silver medallist Roger Black, I asked him about doping in the sport. "The only person who can really know if I am clean is me," he said.

So now we are in the same old cycle – is this a bit Freudian round the edges? – in athletics, a cycle of accusation and denial. At such times, the sport requires to revivify itself to the wider world with good news, with clean performers. It is a time for standard bearers.

The cataclysmic weather here this morning put paid to a meeting-promotion exercise which would have seen Mo Farah, Britain's Olympic 5,000 and 10,000m champion, touring the streets in an open-topped bus.

Mo Farah, Britain's double Olympic champion, will hope to provide athletics with some good news after the bad when he races the 1,500m in the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco

Instead, with the thunder still rolling around, Farah gave an early press conference in which he responded cautiously to the idea that athletes such as he had an additional weight on them to provide good news for the sport after bad, and to renew the sport's appeal to the wider viewing public.

"I've just come from a training camp in St Moritz, so I don't know all the details about what has being going on this week," he said. "But for myself I work hard, and I have got to give up one hour of every day to be open for testing no matter where I am in the world. It's important that we see good things happening in athletics. And sometimes the bad things get covered more than the good things. But we have just got to do what we can ourselves. That's all we can do."

Farah will be doing a 1,500m in Monaco to sharpen himself up for the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, which are only 23 days away. Fingers crossed, he will provide reasons for further celebration in the sport as he seeks to earn the 10,000 title which so narrowly got away from him at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu.

As for the 100m – well, no Gay, no Powell. And – following this week's announcement that Yohan Blake has failed to recover from the hamstring injury which has troubled him all season – no defending champion.

Gatlin will be there, and looks an increasingly strong contender. Usain Bolt, the man whom Farah readily describes as an icon in the sport, will be there, however. It is time for the standard bearers to step up once again.

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. To follow him on Twitter click here.

My route to becoming an elite beach volleyball player was perhaps not the most orthodox one.

In 2008, I applied for UK Sport's "Sporting Giants" talent identification programme.

The programme asks for potential athletes to make themselves known providing they fulfil the basic criteria of being tall (a minimum of 6 foot 3 inches for men and 5 foot 11 for women) and young (between 16 and 25) and with some sort of athletic background.

I was 17 when I applied and I had played tennis at school level, while the fact that I am 6 foot 10 inches helped me easily meet the "giant" criteria.

After a series of difficult and demanding testing phases, I was selected to become part of the GB beach volleyball programme and made I my debut at the Under 21 World Championships in 2009 before competing at the World Cup in 2011.


I just missed out on competing at the London 2012 Olympics as John Garcia-Thompson and Steve Grotowski were the sole pairing selected for Team GB but it was great to cheer them on at Horse Guards Parade and the experience inspired me even more in my goal to make it to Rio 2016.

One of my jobs now is to help further spread that message of inspiration from the Olympic and Paralympic Games as one of Sport England's Sporting Champions.

Has there ever been a better time to be a British Minister for Sport? The nation is about to celebrate the first anniversary of London's Olympic Games and basks not only in the current heat wave but the golden afterglow of wondrous 2012. No wonder a shirt sleeved Hugh Robertson is smiling broadly.

He has just returned from watching England strike the first blow in the Ashes, conscious that getting one over the Aussies fuels the pervading feel-good factor. "Not only has there never been a better time to be Sports Minister, I can't think of any stage of my adult life when there has been a better time for British sport collectively," he beams in an exclusive interview with insidethegames.

Some of us are old enough to recall the wild euphoria of 1966 and all that – at least south of Hadrian's Wall –but it is fair to say that the last 12 months, particularly the current one and those of July and August last year, have put even Sir Alf Ramsey's momentous slice of history into the shade.

Robertson says: "After the Games the question I was most asked was 'how do you follow that?' But we have just witnessed a fabulous Lions victory in Sydney, followed by Andy Murray's wonderful win at Wimbledon, defeating the Aussies in the first Test and being favourites for the Ashes series, and Chris Froome looking set to follow Bradley Wiggins as winner of the Tour de France.


"Also, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could have a British winner of the Open at Muirfield." (Which incidentally he won't attend because of the club's ban on women members. Quite right too).

He adds: "Then we've still got the rugby league World Cup and the international triathlon series in which a Brownlee – or two – might do very well. When I look at the results of the Olympic sports there is certainly no sign of 2012 being a one-off."

Over the years I have seen an entire rugby XV of British Sports Ministers come and go – the good, the bad, and the useless. Only a handful could touch the hem of the incomparable original Denis Howell in what has not always been the most prestigious or rewarding of political appointments. But in the three years he has been in office – after shadowing the role for six – the 50-year-old Robertson, in my view, comes pretty close. He is certainly up there with the best.

As I wrote at the time of his appointment in Opposition, for a Tory, he's not a bad bloke, one of the most decent and fair-minded politicians I have encountered.

The dapper ex-Army major who saw active service in Northern Ireland, the Gulf War and Bosnia, has a good grasp of what sport is about at all levels and is a genuine enthusiast, unlike some of his party's lame-duck predecessors (Colin Moynihan a notable exception). Nor does he bask in reflected glory like some we could name at Westminster.

Some in football, a sport he has commendably taken to task, over its lamentable administration, may demur but his is a benevolent presence in the sporting arena, hardly surprising with Government investment in sport higher than it has ever been.

"The best move we ever made was changing the Lottery allocations back in 2010," he says. "This has given British sport a period of stability and continuity it previously lacked. A lot of credit must go to UK Sport and Sport England. Both those agencies are now stronger than they have ever been since Lottery funding was introduced."


One dampener amid the sunshine celebrations is the continued cynicism over Olympic legacy. Is there one, and if so what exactly is it? Robertson has no doubts. "People are naturally interested in what may be going wrong rather than what is going right. But if you told me a year ago we would be where we are now I would have been surprised and delighted.

"No other nation has ever increased the money for Olympic and Paralympics after a home Games.

"No other home nation has ever increased the number of people participating. I know there was a fall-off in the last figures but it was never going to be a constant uphill curve. Even allowing for that we still have an extra 1.4 million people playing sport.

"There have never been more major sports events coming to this country. Look at the 14 million kids from 20 different countries touched by International Inspiration. And in the teeth of the recession we have managed to solve the issue of school sport by finding another £150 million ($226 million/€172 million) investment. If you look at it in that light, it is an extraordinarily compelling package.

"In terms of legacy at the beginning of the year we had two key things that needed sorting – the future of the Olympic stadium and school sport. Both are now in a much better place."

Of course, it is Robertson's job to push the Government line over legacy but while he does so earnestly he warns: "I would hate to think that anyone will make a spot judgement about legacy on the 27th July – you will have to wait until July 27 2017 or 2022 before you see what difference the Games have made. But the signs are healthy."

In a corner of his airy office on the fourth floor of the Treasury building at the foot of Whitehall, where the department of Culture, Media and Sport now lodges, there is a large wooden hat-stand. It has ten curved hooks.

He now needs all of them as he wears so many hats in his promoted role as Minister of State.

Apart from sport and Olympic legacy there, his portfolio embraces tourism, gambling, ceremonials, national, parks, de-regulation and departmental re-organisation. He was recently prominent in pushing through the Equal Marriage bill and, and earlier this found himself involved in de-regulating the music industry.

"I seem to be the Minister for all sorts of things but I am never conscious that sport is not getting enough of my time. That remains my priority.

"Things may be going well at the moment but there are re some big challenges ahead – notably doping, particularly in the light of recent events, and the increasing worry of illegal gambling, and racism. There are masses to do. I have long days to fill but I am still loving it."

There's no doubt DCMS is a happier ship these days than this time last year, and Robertson gently chides me for my recent criticism here of his new boss as Culture Secretary, Maria Miller.


This followed her personally blocking the appointment of Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson as Sport England chair, who Robertson himself had backed for the job. I suggested that Miller knew naff-all about sport, and that her role as Games Mistress was pointless.

But Robertson springs to her defence. "Maria deserves enormous credit for her help with sport over the Spending Review. Despite a tough economic backdrop, our major participation agency has an extra £25 million ($38 million/€29 million) of funding.

"She's a joy to work with and she does get what sport is about. She's been on a sailing course and as a mother she understands the value of sport to kids."

Apart from the TGT blip, she obviously leaves Robertson to get on with the job, which is as it should be. And no doubt his view is coloured by the less-than-joyous experience of working under the stewardship of her predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, whose interfering DCMS tenure before being upgraded to Health Secretary underscored the adage that when it comes to sport a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Another of Robertson's missions is to get as many major sports events to Britain as possible, which would also be a feather in his tourism cap.

But Commonwealth Games host city Glasgow's shock early elimination in this month's vote for the 2018 Youth Olympics, finishing well behind Colombia's Medellin and winner Buenos Aires, suggest that Britain is over-stretching itself in bidding for so many of the world's top prestige sporting events?

There is a feeling abroad that too many major championships have been coming this way on the back of London 2012, with 24 already secured and a total of 70 targeted over the next five years. These figures have certainly helped elite sport do better than expected in a Spending Review which has guaranteed almost half a billion in Lottery and Exchequer money up to Rio 2016. But is such intense ambition costing international goodwill?

Robertson agrees with me that there could be too much of a good thing. We've had a fantastic run since 2012 and we now have to be a little more strategic in what we go for.

"It was clear to me in Lausanne that Glasgow had an excellent bid but afterwards five important IOC members came up to me and said 'We we would have voted for the UK every time but you just have too much.' "


No doubt Robertson's own career could have taken a different direction had he wished. He is close to Prime Minister David Cameron and twice turned down offers of promotion to higher office while on the Opposition front bench, and, I understand, a Cabinet post subsequently.

Any regrets that he has opted to stick with sport?

"None at all. I still regard myself as extraordinarily fortunate to have done this job. Even when we were getting a lot from flak at times over the Olympics there hasn't been a single morning when I've got out of bed and thought 'I wish I wasn't doing this'. I still have the same enthusiasm for doing it now that I had when I started."

Yes Minister, as you say there could not be a better time to be in charge of British sport. Let's hope that not only weather-wise it's a long, hot summer.

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.

So let's just look at this year's world rankings for the 100 metres.

Top, with 9.75 seconds, Tyson Gay. Who has just admitted failing a doping test. And reported to be among five Jamaican athletes to have failed a test is the man who stands third in the listings with 9.88, former world 100m record holder Asafa Powell.

And who's fourth? Well, that's Justin Gatlin, the United States former Olympic champion who is now back in the sport having served two doping suspensions...but let's not worry about him for now. There's enough to worry about, as far as world athletics is concerned, with today's shocking news concerning the three men above him.

Reports have indicated that one of the other three Jamaican athletes to have failed a test is Sherone Simpson, the 2008 Olympic 100m silver medallist.


It is hard to think of a harsher blow for the sport.

Actually no, it isn't so hard. Similar news concerning the man currently sixth in the 100m listings, Usain Bolt, would be harsher. Almost terminally harsh.

There is no suggestion Bolt has ever been involved in any doping abuse. But it is hardly an easy state of affairs when the man who stands clear as the sport's great modern icon has a growing number of fellow Jamaican athletes who have run afoul of the anti-doping authorities in recent times.

Yohan Blake, Bolt's younger training partner under his coach Glen Mills, served a three-month suspension in 2009 for taking a banned stimulant.

In 2011, sprinter Steve Mullings was banned for life for a second doping offence. He had been training alongside Gay in Clermont, Florida under coach Lance Brauman.

In between winning the Olympic 100m titles at Beijing and London, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, coached by Stephen Francis, had to serve a three-month ban for taking a banned painkiller following dental treatment.

Earlier this year, double Olympic 200m champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, who is also based in Clermont, Florida and worked with the Brauman training group until 2009, was found to have taken a banned diuretic and now faces a suspension.


Now we discover another five reported Jamaican wrongdoers, including, reportedly, Olympic 2008 100m silver medallist Simpson and the man whose world record Bolt broke shortly before the Beijing Games, Powell.

Both Gay and Powell have been part of the world sprinting landscape for the best part of a decade. The American made his big international debut at the 2005 World Championships, finishing fourth in the 200m. His fall from grace is all the more inexplicable for his previous hard-line stance on doping – he was one of the first Olympic athletes to volunteer for a US Anti-Doping Agency programme that requires regular testing of urine and blood samples.

Powell was part of the silver-medal winning sprint quartet at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester and has been a consistently high performer despite failing to claim significant individual championship titles. By October of last year, Powell had recorded 88 legal sub-10sec 100m runs, the highest number achieved.

As men, Powell – who is coached by Stephen Francis in Kingston – and Gay – who has been coached by Brauman and former top US sprinter Jon Drummond – have a quiet demeanour in common, but while Powell is a relaxed and jokey character, Gay always presents as rather nervous and brittle.

Gay's personal website betrayed no hint of concern tonight – featuring as it did his latest Facebook posting, congratulating Andy Murray on his Wimbledon victory – "he showed crazy speed on that court in the final".

The crazy speed shown by Gay this season – he also topped the 200m world listings with 19.74sec until Bolt knocked 0.01sec off that time at the Paris Diamond League meeting – has built expectation for the forthcoming World Championships in Moscow.

After conclusive victories in the US trials over 100 and 200m, Gay appeared ready to put in a serious challenge for the world titles he won in Berlin in 2009 but has since seen secured by either Bolt or his Jamaican training partner Yohan Blake, who took advantage of Bolt's disqualification for a false start to win the 2011 100m title.

Now the sport is robbed of that excitement in Moscow.


News of the kind which has just broken leaves followers of athletics in an unhappily familiar state of ambivalence. Of course, it raises the big question that stems from all high-profile doping positives: can we now believe what we are seeing?

It is a mental process with which all followers of the Tour de France currently in progress will be familiar in the light of the blizzard of recent doping revelations centring on the now discredited seven-time champion Lance Armstrong.

There is, too, another familiar question. Is this bad news actually good news in the long term? And is no news bad news?

The fact that the big guys go down under doping bans shows that someone is not afraid to test them and punish them.

Twenty-five years ago, after the seismic sporting shock of Ben Johnson's disqualification for doping after winning the Olympic 100m title in a world record of 9.79sec, the then President of the International Olympic Committee, Juan Antonio Samaranch, insisted: "This is not a disaster. For it shows the IOC is very serious, and that we are winning the battle for a clean Games. The gap between our aims and those who are cheating is narrowing."

Athletics, certainly, is a lot wiser and more active over cheating than it ever was. Which is why, ultimately, today's bad news has to be seen as good news for all the thousands of track and field competitors who do not take the wrong road to results.

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. To follow him on Twitter click here. 

I think we're all sick of the setpiece sporting celebration, aren't we?

If I never see another footballer sliding to a halt on his knees with arms outstretched before devoutly kissing his badge of convenience I will not repine.

If I never see another "baby-cradling" group dance, or choreographed prance around a corner flag, I will not mind.

(The latter celebration is widely credited as being originated by Cameroon's veteran forward Roger Milla, who ran to the corner flag and wiggled after scoring at the 1990 and 1994 World Cup finals. However, the credit for this celebration should surely go to Frank Lampard – senior, that is, the West Ham left back whose unlikely diving header against Everton earned an appearance in the 1980 FA Cup final and whose subsequent decision to hare off and caper around the corner flag was, by his own admission, a complete mystery. These two are obviously exempt from all criticism.)

Roger Milla (left) celebrates in characteristic fashion after a goal for Cameroon against Russia at the 1994 World Cup finals

It has almost got to the point in football where the only sincere action after scoring is the non-celebration, which is practised on occasions by players who have scored against clubs they recently played for. The most memorable example of this was the shattered, anti-celebration by Denis Law of the backheeled goal for Manchester City in 1974 which he believed would relegate the club at which he had spent his most glorious days, Manchester United. As it turned out, United would have been relegated whatever the result of that game, but Law did not know that at the time and appeared stricken at what he had done, being substituted soon afterwards.

I don't much care, either, for the swallow-diving try-scoring effort in rugby, with accompanying hand signals. And judging by the reaction within rugby following the showy efforts of such as Chris Ashton, the audience whom these efforts amuse or entertain is severely limited.

The most recent celebrations to come under scrutiny in the sporting field have been those at Wimbledon where, if you recall, Andy Murray became the first male Briton to win the gentleman's singles title since Fred Perry in 1936. Surely you remember? Dour Scottish lad? Watched by Gerard Butler and other notables?

Coming to terms with a dream come true...Andy Murray gets advice from tournament referee Andrew Jarrett after beating Novak Djokovic in the final

There was certainly a lot of dramatic collapsing by winners at Wimbledon this year. It used to be that you only collapsed if you won the title in extreme circumstances. Björn Borg would sink to his knees after securing his 137th or 138th title, or whatever number it was, but only after an entire tournament of buttoned-up, ice-eyed restraint. Roger Federer has been known to hit the deck at the moment of victory – but again, this is in contrast to his restrained demeanour throughout the foregoing competitions.

Now, it seems, you can grand slam yourself onto the turf if you win any match, even if it is in the early rounds. The currency of collapse is collapsing.

No one, however, could question the veracity of Murray's reaction after finally securing the title he had longed for. He meandered about Centre Court like a bee looking for a flower. He appeared to be in a dreamlike state, although he had effectively just woken up to the wider realities of life after the trance-like concentration he had brought to the match, a concentration deepened over the past 18 months by the impassive figure looking on in sunglasses from the players' box, Ivan Lendl.

Happy daze...Andy Murray greets members of the crowd during a Centre Court walkabout after winning the Wimbledon title

As the current Olympic champion distractedly confessed to the BBC's Sue Barker – whose courtside interview no Wimbledon champion or runner-up can now escape – he could not remember the final point of the match, the climactic moment of a last game in which, three times, he had had the title within his grasp, and three times missed it.

In truth, Barker herself seemed a little dazed by events after she had returned from courtside to the studio to discuss the moment of "British sporting history" she and an estimated 17 million other interested parties had just witnessed. The way in which this former French Open champion, and Wimbledon semi-finalist – damn you, Betty Stove! – had gone about her business during the fortnight of action in SW19 was largely exemplary, but there were times when her desperate espousal of home hopes resembled the one-eyed obsession of a doting parent.

Having asked Lindsay Davenport, the 1999 Wimbledon champion, to talk about likely new challengers for the women's title, she added, archly, "haven't you forgotten someone?" In other words, the American had not mentioned the new British darling of the courts, Laura Robson.

If that moment was embarrassing, some of the pre-match trumpeting of Andy Murray in artfully assembled clips – The Pride! The Passion! The Parochialism! – was excruciating. However, the reaction of the young man from Dunblane in the moments when he began to realise he had achieved his highest ambition had an authenticity which was unmistakable.

At that point, he seemed akin to Cathy Freeman, the Australian 400 metres runner who fulfilled all the longing of her nation as she became the first Aboriginal Olympic champion at the home Games of 2000 in Sydney just a few days after fulfilling the responsibility of lighting the Olympic Flame.

Cathy Freeman takes in the enormity of her achievement in winning the 2000 Olympic 400m title for the home nation in Sydney

After crossing the line, Freeman pulled down the cowl of her one-piece running suit and sat blankly on the track amid a ferment of adoration.

Freeman and Murray are both now part of sporting history – two momentarily bewildered souls at the epicentre of their own achievement.

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. To follow him on Twitter click here.