IAAF World Championships

[Hope]

The forthcoming Athletics World Championships, being held in Beijing, is likely to see a head-2-head between Usain Bolt and Justin Gatland in the 100m final.  Whilst Bolt is a multi-World and Olympic Champion, Gatland, for all his successes on the track has been banned twice for taking performance enhancing drugs.  In each case his ban was halved on appeal. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/29515182

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33891436

Are you in the 'let him run regardless' camp or are you in the 'his involvement adds tarnish to an already compromised sport' camp?

[Rhiannon]

I'm in the 'don't give a toss' camp. Gatland got caught but many competing won't have and the sport knows it isn't clean. I hope to goodness Bolt doesn't dope because he seems like a good guy but we can't believe anything that we watch.

[Nearly Sane]

If Gatlin wins then it will symbolise the problem athletics has with drugs, even if this time he is clean. The fact that three other possible medal contenders in the same race have also been banned at some stage underlines it. I think there is a general belief that 'they all do it' and if Bolt were to be found to be doped,that belief would become   near unanimous.

With Gatlin himself, there has been no admission of guilt or culpability, this causes further issues to the believability of any statements he makes now about being clean.

[Nearly Sane]

One of the other issues athletics has in particular is that either you have a set of world records that people just think are drug fuelled and so last a long time - for example all woman's flat races from 100 to 800 m, or if they get beaten that this can only be done by new drugs. To be fair, it has always been thus in my memory with the clear suspicion and often outright stated commentary, that our 'boys and girls' were clean, but those Iron Curtain athletes were all doped up. Something that was only partly true but our drug cheats were anamolies and not part of anything bigger....hmmmm?

[Nearly Sane]

I suppose though all of this just allows a narrative of good vs bad which gives some people more interest in a sport. It's often been said of tennis of late that it lacks people to dislike, though Nick Kyrgios seems destined for some role in that,but then tennis seems to be doing ok overall despite that.

[Rhiannon]

Tennis seems to attract a particular audience and there are enough of them to keep the sport going well. People like McEnroe brought in a wider audience, but it doesn't need that in order to be successful.

Athletics relies on big audiences for its championships and it relies on people like Bolt. No, scrub that, it relies on Bolt entirely. Outside of the UK who talks about Ennis-Hill?

[Hope]

Just been watching a replay of the last 2 laps of Mo Farah's 10,000m race in Beijing on the BBC website, and I was interested by the way in which lapped runners refused to move into an outer lane in order to allow the leading runners from passing inside them.  As Brendan Foster said in commentary, that has always been racetrack etiquette (and not just in athletics), but seem to be being lost nowadays.  The result, as far as I could see, was that Mo was twice clipped from behind as he moved out to overtake someone he was lapping.

[Rhiannon]

Obviously his reputation is tarnished now because of the rumours around his coach. But he has also behaved ungraciously to Andy Vernon - Vernon did initially make a mistake in offending Farah but tried to apologise. Maybe Farah's making himself unpopular both through staying with his coach and in his general attitude.

http://www.eurosport.co.uk/athletics/andy-vernon-accuses-mo-farah-of-swearing-at-him-as-spat-reignites_sto4815232/story.shtml

[Hope]

Obviously his reputation is tarnished now because of the rumours around his coach. But he has also behaved ungraciously to Andy Vernon - Vernon did initially make a mistake in offending Farah but tried to apologise. Maybe Farah's making himself unpopular both through staying with his coach and in his general attitude.

http://www.eurosport.co.uk/athletics/andy-vernon-accuses-mo-farah-of-swearing-at-him-as-spat-reignites_sto4815232/story.shtml

I caught the tail-end of a debate about this (or I assume it was about this story on Radio 5) on our way home from church.  Seems to me that both ends of the story don't tally, so who knows what the truth is.  Lots of 'accuses' and 'claims' flying around.

[Hope]

A well-balanced and honest (as far as I can make out) report on the 100m final.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34032366

[Hope]

Is Mo Farah now the best athlete that Great Britain has ever produced?  Brendan Foster suggests that he is.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34092438 (video)

[Harrowby Hall]

Is Mo Farah now the best athlete that Great Britain has ever produced?  Brendan Foster suggests that he is.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34092438 (video)

Don't tell the Daily Express - he's an immigrant.

[Hope]

Is Mo Farah now the best athlete that Great Britain has ever produced?  Brendan Foster suggests that he is.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34092438 (video)

Don't tell the Daily Express - he's an immigrant.

Is he?  His father was born in Britain and is a British citizen.  I agree that Mo didn't get to the UK until he was 8, but I'm not sure that he is classed as an immigrant.

[Harrowby Hall]

Is Mo Farah now the best athlete that Great Britain has ever produced?  Brendan Foster suggests that he is.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/34092438 (video)

Don't tell the Daily Express - he's an immigrant.

Is he?  His father was born in Britain and is a British citizen.  I agree that Mo didn't get to the UK until he was 8, but I'm not sure that he is classed as an immigrant.

According to the Daily Express's understanding of the term, Boris Johnson is an immigrant.