Games can get past dope past
For once the start of the Barclays Premier League season has been upstaged by sports as diverse as gymnastics, dressage and sailing.
The Olympics is in full swing and even the most sceptical among us can’t help but be blown away by some of the performances on show.
As I write this on Tuesday morning, Team GB are sitting with 16 golds and more than 40 medals and are on course to do as well as London 2012.
For many of these sports it is the only time they are given the airtime to showcase their skills, and boy are they giving us some great entertainment.
While the likes of Mo Farah, Andy Murray and Sir Bradley Wiggins have grabbed the headlines many ‘unknowns’ have stepped up and delivered great results.
An example of this is British diver Chris Mears, who was given just a five per cent chance of survival, after contracting the deadly Epstein-Barr virus in 2009.
Last week he won Britain’s first ever diving gold medal with partner Jack Laugher.
Welsh cyclist Becky James spent a year out of the saddle following a cancer scare two years ago before winning a silver in the women’s Keirin.
Aside from British performances, the sight of South African Wayde van Niekerk smashing Michael Johnson’s 17-year 400m world record on the track was a particular highlight as was Usain Bolt keeping two-time drug cheat Justin Gatlin off the top of the podium in the 100m.
Of course the subject of doping is never far away from these Games.
The IOC cop-out on allowing Russian athletes to compete in the days before Rio threatened to cast a shadow over what is supposed to be the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet.
The sight of Gatlin standing above athletics’ poster boy could have been used to paint a poetic picture on what has been a hellish few months for the IOC top brass.
Thankfully it didn’t happen but we can only hope we have been watching true sport rather than dopers cheating the spectators and a worldwide audience of billions.
The case of Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova only highlights the sheer incompotence of sports’
Stepped up and delivered great results