Dual Oaks-winning trainer accused of slapping Australian racing in the face with a fish after incendiary blogRalph Beckett has been accused of slapping Australian racing in the face with a fish, after he posted an incendiary blog on his website suggesting that the lack of Australian entries at Royal Ascot this year is a result of tighter rules on steroid use in that country. The Hampshire-based trainer suggests that Australian participation in the Group One sprint races at the Royal meeting might now be a thing of the past and that some of their winners there may have benefited from doses of steroids during their careers, a suggestion which has previously been denied by some of the trainers involved. Related:...
Jonathan Edwards and Paula Radcliffe are among those who will have longstanding records wiped under new rules but is it window-dressing?When Lionel Messi slaloms away from three, four, five players, before dabbing a shot past the keeper with the cool nonchalance of a movie star stubbing out a cigarette, millions of jaws go into freefall. It is the same when Ronnie O’Sullivan machine-guns around a snooker table, or Roger Federer whips his wrist to slap a scudding cross-court winner. Their genius makes us giddy.Yet when a track and field star produces something equally extraordinary, our inner detective moves to high alert. We have been duped, deceived and played for fools so many times now that a world record no longer...
Avalanche of meticulously planned publicity has prepared the ground for tennis star’s return in Stuttgart but an unfortunate set of facts has been glossed overOne can only assume she doesn’t realise it, but nothing widens the credibility gap with Maria Sharapova quite so much as the manner of her return. As always with the women’s tour’s most bankable star, who returns to tennis next week after a 15-month doping ban, not a single thing has been left to chance, and no moment of opportunity has been left unexploited.Sharapova will appear on court at the Porsche Grand Prix in Stuttgart next week – a wildcard entry on the day her ban expires – and to coincide with this her management have...
Having sold themselves as the ultimate in professionalism, Team Sky and British Cycling are now asking us to accept a remarkable litany of basic mistakes as the anti-doping investigation rolls onWill the clean victories of British cycling turn out to be another story that Britain liked to tell itself, in the manner of the “special relationship” or our supernaturally accomplished SAS? For some, it is still too early to say, though somewhat less early than it was a few months ago, before UK Anti-Doping began its increasingly revelatory investigation into Team Sky and its partner British Cycling.By now, there will perhaps be raised eyebrows in the many organisations before which the Team Sky head coach, Sir Dave Brailsford, spoke so...
The older, wiser Olympic champion is finally addressing the doping epidemic that he’d always avoided, but will it be enough to prompt real change?Michael Phelps sat before a congressional panel on Tuesday, no longer a silent superstar whistling past the Olympics doping problem. For years, the most-decorated Olympian ever seemed content to pretend the controversy swirling in sports was not his problem. Best to duck his head, mumble nothings and dive into the pool.But the older, wiser Phelps who found his voice in Rio has kept talking into retirement. The sticky subject he always avoided is no longer taboo. He seems to want to be swimming’s elder statesman at 31 and being an elder statesman means taking stands. He is...