Sir, – Nauseatingly billed in some quarters as “good versus evil” and “the race to save the sport”, Usain Bolt’s 100m world championship victory over Justin Gatlin and a field of athletes which contained, in Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay, two sprinters who have previously failed doping tests and served bans has set the efforts to clean up athletics back even further.
If Gatlin had not tied up and lost form and momentum in the final few metres of the race, his probable victory would have have shone a powerful spotlight on just how morally bankrupt athletics is as a sport.
Confronted with Gatlin’s win and coronation as world champion, sponsors and all the sports key stakeholders, including the millions watching the race around the world, would have been forced to ask themselves and the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) a very unpleasant question – what kind of sport allows a twice-banned doper to go on and become its world champion?
Instead Bolt’s epic victory has, we are told, given us “the result that everyone wanted to see”. Well, everyone in the IAAF at least. – Yours, etc,
DENIS HICKIE,
Dublin 6.