Are European distance runners finally catching up with east Africa? Last weekend's World Cross Country Championships in Ostend certainly suggested they are, as European athletes made their biggest impression on the event in well over a decade.

A year ago in Vilamoura, for instance, European athletes could only fill five of the top 12 places in the men's senior race. Kenya and Ethiopia filled the other seven. In Ostend, European athletes filled nine of the top 12 places, and Kenya alone filled the other three. Ethiopia could only manage ninth in the team race - behind Ireland - while America took bronze medals for the first time since 1986.

The cold wind and muddy course in Ostend may have favoured the nonAfricans but Kenyan coach and national champion Mike Kosgei makes no such excuses. He believes that part of the problem was Kenya's two-week training camp prior to the championships, which he says was too short and too soft.

Kenyan athletes, he says, are losing their sense of teamwork, and other nations are duplicating their way of training.

In fact, two of the athletes - Peter Matthews and Seamus Power - who helped Ireland to its eighth-place team result (the highest since 1985) had already spent a period of training in Kenya and have been improving ever since.

Doped Finns can't go on the piste

AS anti-doping programmes become increasingly difficult to breach, one would expect the not-so-ethical athlete to become increasingly vigilant.

That certainly wasn't the case with a group of Finland's beloved cross-country skiers who were busted for performance enhancing drugs after leaving behind their medical bag at a petrol station near Helsinki Airport.

One of the skiers, Jari Isometsa, had tested positive for the blood doping substance HES at the Nordic World Championships in Finland in late February. He initially denied the use of the substance, as well as denying that his coaches and his team-mates were involved.

But then the bag was found, and in it were prescriptions for the banned drug as well as other medications that stop potentially serious allergic reactions in people who take the drug.

HES, by the way, stands for hydroxyethyl starch - a blood plasma volume expander whose benefits are similar to that of EPO.

It was only recently added to the IOC banned list but Isometsa and some of his team-mates are now facing a ban from competition for a minimum of two years.

Nothing is better than air after all

For over two decades now, sports shoes with "air" cushioning were believed to help prevent injury. But a new study by an Australian team at La Trobe University in Victoria and published in the New Scientist has suggested otherwise.

Part of the study looked at basketball players and found that those who wore "air cushioned" shoes were four times more likely to suffer ankle injuries than those wearing standard runners.

According to sports scientist Roger Bartlett, the air soles do offer better absorption of shock but they can also make the heel rotate more when it hits the ground.

That's only part of the problem. The air cushioning can reduce the information a player's brain receives about the position of their feet, and with a reduction in that sensitivity, there is further risk of injury.

A spokesperson for Nike, the main manufacturers of air cell runners, they are taking the study seriously and are looking into it: "But this type of shoe has been in production for 24 years and has had countless rounds of testing."

Why it may pay to be thick skinned

It has become ever more popular for athletes in many sports to adorn their bodies with tattoos of various designs, with Olympic rings or national flags among the more popular choices. But Rasheed Wallace of the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers has run into trouble over his particular choice.

Wallace has been made a lucrative offer to advertise a major chocolate bar company in the form of a tattoo on his body. The NBA aren't happy, but they are examining the issue closely before making a final decision on whether to endorse the move or not.

The main question that needs to be answered is who owns the players' bodies when he is representing the NBA in competition.

One of the NBA rules states that players will not "sponsor commercial products without the consent of the team, which shall not be withheld except in the reasonable interests of the team or the NBA". It is known that the NBA already have a deal with a rival chocolate bar company.

But according to Wallace's agent, Bill Strickland, his client should be free to use his skin as he sees fit. "There's nothing in the books that says he can't do it. And you've got all kinds of free speech issues if the league attempts to stop it."

Still, one has to wonder where this particular idea might end.