Clear out the cheats

Forget reputations, time for athletics chiefs to act is now

LESS than a week away f r om t he World Athletics Championships, it is impossible for anyone who loves the sport to believe that the competition in Beijing will be clean, fair and above board.

It is difficult to know whether to be more saddened or infuriated by this farcical state of affairs.

The weekend brought accusations that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the sport’s global governing body, have deliberately buried a report in which a third of elite athletes at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, actually admitted to cheating.

Let the scale of that sink in just for a moment. They deny it, of course. The IAAF and the alleged cover-up, that is, not the athletes and the cheating.

At the top end of this purest of pursuits — run fastest, throw furthest, jump higher or longer and the medal is yours — there have always been whispers about failed tests never made public, suspensions not imposed or medical ‘exemptions’ applied in questionable circumstances.

Now that these mutterings and rumours have turned into a damning roar — an avalanche of revelations about medal winners getting away with ‘juicing’ for their entire careers — athletics faces an indisputable crisis of confidence.

Because, as soon as the public lose faith in the sanctity of the competition, the moment they dismiss every golden run, throw or leap as a cause for more suspicion than celebration, the entire edifice is in danger of collapsing.

If the slide towards the cred- ibility abyss is not halted, it would be more than just a pity for those clean athletes who expend so many hours pushing their bodies to the legal limit in the hope of landing one of the big prizes.

It would be a crime against every kid who dreams of setting a new personal best, every volunteer coach, timekeeper, sand- pit raker and hurdle arranger who maintain the grass roots of this unique sport — the one truly authentic test of human abilities and frailties.

What athletics needs, then, is leadership. It is not getting that f rom the IAAF, who appear to be far too busy with the side issues surrounding this crisis to do what is needed.

Together with the World Anti-Doping Agency, they need to grab their sport by the scruff of the neck and shake it until every last phial and syringe clatters to the ground.

If t hat means t r ashing reputations, fine.

If it means creating an even more stringent testing system, make it happen.

Instead of simply pretending that things aren’t really as bad as people make out, admit the scale of the problem and commit to doing whatever it takes to tackle it.

Yesterday, the IAAF disputed the claim they have vetoed the Daegu report by academics from Germany’s University of Tubingen, conducted with the authorities’ permission on the condition t hey had f i nal approval.

Apparently, the IAAF are still working with their partners to verify certain issues in a report where ‘the scientific rigour didn’t pass muster.’

After three years, it’s hard to imagine many facts being left unchecked or untested. Who is running this operation, Sir John Chilcot?

Meanwhile, the gents who run the sport are getting their wee white shorts in a twist over double Tour de France champion Chris Froome suggesting that athletics needs to take their lead from cycling.

Ouch. Given the Tour’s history, that must hurt.

However, in pointing out that they spend more on anti-doping than cycling, the IAAF can’t be comparing athletics — truly universal, open to anyone — with a sport where the need for equipment still restricts numbers. Can they?

The hope of those at the top appears to be that, once the athletes actually get on the track and into the field in the Bird’s Nest Stadium, then performances will take over from innuendo and everyone will concentrate on the sheer joy and exuberance of watching the world’s best excel. Well, we’ll see. Some will even wait until seeing the test results, second sample cross-testing outcomes and academic studies before cheering any achievement too loudly.

And that’s a damned shame.