ROGER THE GREAT A HUMBLE HERO

IT WAS a horrible irony that a ground-breaking neurologist like Roger Bannister should suffer from Parkinson’s disease before his death yesterday, at the age of 88.

The juxtaposition of his passing and reports that Ruth Jebet, the reigning Olympic steeplechase champion, has allegedly failed a drugs test for the blood-booster EPO, was equally ironic.

Anyone who ever met Bannister could not but be impressed by his humility.

He always insisted that what he did in medicine was far more important than becoming the first athlete to break the four-minute mile in May 1954.

“He banked his treasure in the heart of his friends,” said a statement from his family and indeed he remained lifelong friends with his two pacemakers that day in Oxford, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway, who both pre-deceased him.

Bannister’s achievement – his world record actually only lasted 46 days – will always be venerated, but modern athletics’ credibility has taken another body blow with this news on Jebet.

The 21-year-old is Kenyan-born and mostly trains there, even though she runs for Bahrain.

Between 2011 and 2016 more than 40 athletes from Kenya failed drugs tests and, at one point, the country was deemed ‘non-compliant’ by WADA, but was reinstated before the Rio Olympics.

Despite such a record, it has managed to escape the sort of national ban that Russia got.

It would be interesting also to examine the anti-doping spend of oilrich countries like Bahrain, who have bought in so many African athletes in the past decade.

It’s a concept that is a trillion four-minute miles away from the Corinthian spirit of the late, great Roger Bannister.