He’s started on the controversy in Russia, so now... Coe must have guts to tackle British athletics’ smug attitude to doping

AFTER an interminable period of denial, protest and delusion, athletics has accepted that it cannot ignore the Russian drugs scandal any longer. Many more tests of its resolve now lie ahead if it is to regain any credibility. One is the assumption, which is fiercely and aggressively defended, that British athletics does not have a problem.

Sure, it would be perverse to equate our situation with the statesponsored depravity that appears to have become the norm in Russia and which, a generation ago, pushed Eastern Bloc athletes towards records, some of which still stand. Thankfully, we’re not in that league.

Still, it is bitterly funny how parochial and naïve we can be when it comes to our own. When Russian or eastern European athletes win a race, we tut and smile knowingly and Paula Radcliffe holds up a sign saying: ‘EPO cheats out’.

But when a British runner beats a Russian runner, the assumption is always that he or she has done it on talent alone. When we win, it is because of ability. When Russians win, it is because of what they are taking. Our double standards are breathtaking.

Remember several years ago when disgraced British sprinter Dwain Chambers was asked whether a clean athlete could possibly beat a doped runner. ‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘But the person that has taken drugs has to be having a real bad day. That’s what I believe.’

Let’s be honest about this: there have been British athletes in the past whose careers have fitted the profile of a drug cheat perfectly. Many of us feel unable to celebrate their achievements and yet they are feted and held up as examples to kids. To many of us, they are just people who got away with it.

THE suspension of Russia from international athletics is shockingly overdue and a source of great relief but, in the midst of the horror and the disillusionment provoked by the allegations against Russian athletics, the danger is that the wider struggle in the sport will be ignored.

It would be easy to isolate Russia, use them as the fall-guys and leave it at that. It would be easy to kid ourselves that now their misdeeds have been exposed, everything will be OK again. It would be convenient to suggest the problem has been fixed. It would be convenient but it would also be wrong.

The test for athletics now and particularly for International Association of Athletics Federations president, Lord Coe, is whether it has the courage to shine an unforgiving spotlight on itself. Let’s be honest: athletics didn’t want these revelations to emerge. It wasn’t just the Russians who were trying to suppress doping failures. The entire culture of the sport was at fault.

We’ve been here before. The US is said to have suppressed more than 100 positive tests affecting its athletes, including Carl Lewis, between 1988 and 2000. No one found out until 2003 and even then everyone preferred to look the other way. Lewis is still treated as a hero wherever he goes.

Athletics is good at looking the other way. Let’s not forget that Lord Coe greeted the findings of the German documentary that led to this crisis as ‘a declaration of war on our sport’. Let’s not forget that many supported him. The sport whined about sensationalist journalism and hoped the allegations would go away.

Steve Cram, one of the most influential voices in the sport in this country, spoke well on the radio about the crisis last week but condemning Russia in the light of these allegations is the same as condemning two-time drugs cheat Justin Gatlin. It’s easy.

It is the hard part we are not so good at. When British athletes come under suspicion, the British athletics establishment still circles the wagons. Then former athletes like Allison Curbishley and Kelly Sotherton, who still have influential voices, go into attack mode.

THEY scoff at the idea that missing drugs tests, for instance, is reprehensible. They make excuses for British athletes. They ridicule anyone who criticises British athletes. In many cases, they and the rest of the establishment treat the criticism as a point of amusement. The establishment goes easy on people who make excuses for missed or failed tests and it shuns those who are honest. ‘If an athlete says he took something for a cough it gets swept away,’ said Chambers in the wake of his confessions. ‘Me, I told it how it was and I’ve been condemned every day of my life.’

It is always other nations that have the drug problems. It is always them and never us. What does that make us? Smug, complacent and delusional for a start. When Christine Ohuruogu missed three drugs tests in 2005 and 2006 and was banned for a year, no one in British athletics condemned her. They offered her sympathy. They talked of the injustice of the system. It was pathetic.

Once he has done with the Russians, that is the culture Lord Coe has to tackle. Whether he has the guts for it is open to question when he cannot even bring himself to sever his ties with Nike, even though it represents a blatant conflict of interest.

If he hasn’t got the guts for it, he should quit now. There’s no room for the old pals’ act any more. There’s no room for excuses and sympathy and moaning about how tough it is to comply with the ‘whereabouts’ rule.

It is about time athletics realised that criticism from the outside is not the problem. The sport is under attack from within. It is killing itself, not just through cheating but through a reluctance to confront cheating. The time has come when it must change or wither.