THE VIGILANT
Athletics is being plagued by doping scandals but Louise Martin is confident that, on her watch, there will be no complacency when it comes to Commonwealth Games
WAITING for the other s hoe to drop. Wondering if the next big scandal is going to blow a giant hole in heroic efforts to pull together a major championship.
In an era when doping revelations and corruption allegations abound, apprehension must stalk every waking moment for any big-time sports administrator. There have to be moments when it feels as if the bad guys are winning.
Times when the forces of truth and justice appear to be making barely perceptible headway against the rising tide.
Speak to Louise Martin, though, and you will get a convincing argument to the contrary. The newly elected president of the Commonwealth Games Federation ( CGF) i s extremely good at accentuating the positive. Possibly because she believes in it.
Martin, who will leave her post as chair of sportscotland to take up the CGF gig later this year, agrees that international sport in general — Lord Coe’s athletics empire, in particular — has issues with drug cheats. Each day seems to bring a new whisper or shout about some country or discipline.
Yet, asked if she lived in fear of a major exposé wrecking a Commonwealth Games many years in the bidding, planning and delivery, she told Sportsmail: ‘Actually, believe it or not, I don’t worry about that.
‘I know the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has its problems. They are having to sort them out. We’re working with people in the IAAF related to the Commonwealth fraternity and those who are delivering the sport itself, rather than the administration.
‘ I’m very confident that the people we’re working with, at that level, are going to ensure that we can deliver a Games that are the best.
‘ We’ve j ust brought Keith Joseph from St Vincent and the Grenadines on to our sports committee. He knows every aspect of athletics from the grassroots to the elite, having worked in that sport for years.
‘And we need to work with the national federations so, if one is having problems, we have to find a way of working with them. Probably not in the area where they’re having the problem, but with those able to deliver on the ground, so to speak. It’s not our problem.’
With Kenya one of the nations now under the spotlight, Martin cannot deny that the loss of their athletes — dominant in everything from 800 metres up — from the Gold Coast in 2018 would be horrendous, saying: ‘Oh, absolutely.
‘And this is one of the things we’re trying to ensure doesn’t happen. So it’s about working with countries, the 71 in our Federation, making sure that they f ully understand what’s happening.
‘You can’t become complacent, you must be vigilant all the time.
‘One of the things we’ve signed up to is equity, anti match-fixing, anti-doping, that sort of thing. We want a clean, open, transparent Games — and a level playing field for the athletes.’
Often derided, occasionally belittled as less than relevant in a world of competing championships and ever increasing demands, the Commonwealth Games need to be more than just clean and transparent. They need as much pop and sparkle as possible.
Without ever believing that these Games can stand shoulder-toshoulder with the Olympics, Martin — thrilled that Durban will be the host in 2022, finally taking the most visible demonstration of Commonwealth unity to Africa for the first time — sets her sights high.
‘I intend, by the time I finish, that the Games will be, if not the most respected, then the next most respected multi-sport event in the world,’ she said, pausing just momentarily for effect. ‘Even though we’re only Commonwealth-wide, I want people to recognise us as an organisation t hat delivers, and that all the athletes of the Commonwealth — from Usain Bolt down to the youngsters coming through — all want to be at the Games.
‘And Glasgow 2014 proved that we could do that. There is now this excitement, this aura, this passion about the Commonwealth.
‘We speak the same language, which means there should be no misunderstandings. Competition is fierce, of course it is. But once the competition f i nishes, the friendship lasts.
‘ The Games are the l argest manifestation of the Commonwealth in action. That, in many ways, is what keeps the Commonwealth together. It is one of the lynchpins of the whole organisation.’
Tackling head- on t he new challenge of the multi- sport European Games and the old demands of an Olympic cycle often seeming to work directly against t he Commonwealth Games, Martin said: ‘The European Games ar e in t he s ame y e ar s as Commonwealth Games now — but at a different time of year.
‘But the difference between the European Games a nd t he Commonwealth Games is that they are eight sports, all in a week to 10 days — while we are 17, 18 sports within 11 days of competition, three weeks of bringing everyone together.
‘And ours is a full Games, not just individual championships being pulled together. Hopefully it won’t make a difference. But every quadrennial, we’ll have to make sure that we get the best athletes at the Commonwealth Games. We in the Federation have to deliver a Games where the athletes want to go.
‘I don’t see the Olympic cycle as a threat. I see it as a bonus.’
It says everything about the success of Commonwealth Games over the past 20 years, most notably Glasgow 2 0 1 4 and Melbourne eight years earlier, that the biggest threat perceived by the CGF at the moment is one of getting too big.
They’ve had to introduce a cap on the number of athletes taking part, wary of trying to turn the Games into a quasi- Olympics, with all the infrastructure costs that entails. With cities shying away from spending public money even on something likely to generate a major return, small is officially beautiful.
Martin, who was a key player in the Glasgow 2014 bid team that saw off Nigerian rivals Abuja, explained: ‘ We never want to be the Olympics. The Commonwealth Games has to be at a level that cities can bid for.
‘At the moment, we don’t have that. We will have in 2026 — there are two cities bidding for those Games, in Wales and Canada.
‘But you need that to be continuous. You can’t have the bidding process costing too much — or the Games costs themselves just being ridiculous.
‘Edmonton suffered from the oil slump. They couldn’t deliver the Games as they wanted, so they pulled out of the race for 2022. We need something of the size that everyone can enjoy, with the elite athletes there — without gigantism.
‘The Durban bid is good. We worked with them to put together a bid worthy of a unanimous vote.
‘It feels like completing the circle. That was used against us when we were going for 2014 and, I can tell you, my fingers were crossed during that vote.
‘Because the Abuja presentation was powerful, powerful stuff, based on them saying: “It’s ours, it’s ours, it’s ours”. I kept thinking: “No, you have to earn the right to do this”. And I knew our team had done the job.’
Trying to pull together votes for the 2014 bid was a good introduction for Martin to the machinations of the CGF, a body not without its regional rivalries and internal squabbling.
Asked about the politics of the new job, she laughed and said: ‘The same as any other politics — with a small and a large “p”. It can be enjoyable, as long as you get the outcome you want.
‘It’s the same here, the politics within sport in Scotland. Difficult, challenging, exciting — and it takes a lot of time to get things right.’
We want a transparent, clean and open Games