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?...
Dick Pound’s defence of his latest successor as Wada president, Craig Reedie, just doesn’t stand upEncouraging news for the embattled Wada president, Sir Craig Reedie, as the founder Wada president, Dick Pound, rides eye-catchingly to his defence. By way of recap, Russia last week missed the deadline to allow the World Anti‑Doping Agency access to the Moscow laboratory that was at the heart of its massive state-sponsored doping programme. This deadline was itself a bizarre act of faith on Wada’s part, given that Russia has failed to comply with two crucial recommendations of the McLaren report which uncovered the vast scale of their cheating.Anyway, the predictably missed deadline has gone down like the proverbial sandwich with many national anti-doping authorities,...
Not surprisingly reinstating Russia to international competition has not gone down particularly well, and the Wada president’s insistence he had no alternative is a laughable responseI am affronted on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency president Craig Reedie to learn that he was pointedly not invited to this week’s White House event entitled “Advancing International Commitment to Clean Sports: Reforming the World Anti-Doping Agency”. In many ways the White House should be a place of camaraderie for Sir Craig. He certainly wouldn’t have been the only guy in the place who thinks he has been treated very unfairly over matters relating to Russian urine.“I am used to athletes complaining,” sniffed Reedie of the outrage over last month’s Wada decision to...
Exactly 30 years on from the Seoul Olympics 100m, the ineffectiveness of the anti-doping system remains a concernThirty years ago today, Ben Johnson crouched on his starting blocks before the 100m Olympic final in Seoul, waiting. A gun went off. And he went supernova. Even now there is a visceral thrill watching him burn off his rivals from between 30 to 70 metres – those tiny legs whirring at an almost impossible velocity, as if the race replay is being played at double speed, while they strain in vain to catch him – as he lifts one finger in the air in triumph.After his lap of honour, Johnson was asked which he treasured more: his gold medal or a world...