The presence of 335 Russian athletes has raised eyebrows, but finger-pointing from Britain and the US invites dark chucklesWe will ROC you! Let’s face it, the retro cold war touches dripping away at the back of Tokyo 2020 were always likely to run hot at some point. In the end it took a particularly ticklish men’s backstroke 200m to turn the tap.The presence of 335 Russian Olympic Committee athletes at these Games has seemed to surprise those who had assumed the ban for state-sponsored doping might have restricted Russia’s physical presence in some way. Or indeed that Russia’s athletes would have to compete in Japan as something other than Russia, beyond a few shifts in branding and a change of...
Track and field takes doping seriously, banning 66 Olympic and world medallists since the Athletics Integrity Unit’s launch in 2017And still the headlines come. On Thursday the Rio Olympic 100m hurdles champion, Brianna McNeal, was provisionally suspended and could face an eight-year doping ban for “tampering”. The week before, the 2017 long jump world champion Luvo Manyonga was suspended and could face a four-year ban for whereabouts violations. Both cases are yet to be prosecuted, and the usual caveats about being innocent until proven guilty apply, but the message is increasingly clear. Track and field is a sport which takes anti-doping seriously. Related: Brianna McNeal, Olympic 100m hurdles champion, could face eight-year ban Related: Sebastian Coe shrugs off concerns that...
Cas leniency is like Great Train Robbers getting community service, but a lesson in realpolitik may concentrate mindsHere is a question you may not expect to find in a sports column. When a journalist is assassinated, do financial markets care? The answer, according to new research in the journal Applied Economics, is a resounding yes. And there is more in the detail. If the murdered journalist was an editor or worked in television, stock prices of companies with headquarters in that country declined on average by 2.18%. However, if they were tortured beforehand, they fell by 3%. And if they were killed by military officials, prices went down even further by 4.62%.This awful set of statistics tells us that the...
Nicole Sapstead promises Ukad ‘is moving into the 21st century’ – greater powers of detection and punishment would helpReaders of this column are among the smartest, most brilliant and most knowledgeable sports fans in the country. But here is a question that may fox some of you: name a sports star who has been banned recently in Britain for doping? Go on, have a think. And no, Tyson Fury doesn’t count given his ended in 2017.Does London City Royals’ US-born basketball guard AJ Roberts, who received a two-year punishment for cannabis, ring a bell? Or Henry Hadfield, a League 2 North rugby union player who also got two years for a prohibited stimulant he insists was in a pre-workout drink?...
Few sporting nations are qualified to talk with certainty about the failings of others and, with London 2012 the most dope-ridden Olympics ever staged, Britain is not one of themAnd what a time it was, and what a time. Here’s a festive quiz question. What do you get if you cross Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban, Ali Bongo, Boris Johnson and Robert Mugabe? Answer: a VIP guest box at the London 2012 opening ceremony!A time of innocence. A time of confidence. A time of mob-handed despots on a summer junket, so many in fact that those Games are still ranked as the second-largest gathering of world leaders ever assembled – discounting UN summits, none of which have been able to boast...