I cannot bury my head in the sand any longer; I
would like to pretend that the Olympic sports were beyond the scandals such as
the one that recently engulfed FIFA - sadly it has become evident that they are
on a par. Last week Michael Johnson admitted he feared that the recent doping
convictions, and subsequent cover ups, would be more damaging to athletics than
the corruption scandal was for football.
The timing could not have been worse for the
sport and its athletes with the Olympics only a few months away. It is still
undecided as to whether the Russian athletes will be allowed to compete this
summer and now many of the British stars are voicing their concerns in the hope
of extending the ban. There are so many questions. Even if the Russian team are
now clean how can their competitors trust the system to monitor and eliminate
the cheats? It was fraud on a national scale with seemingly all athletes from
track and field taking part in the organised illegal performance enhancing drug
programme. The scary part for me as an onlooker is the fact that so many knew
exactly what was going on and nothing was done to prevent the careers of clean
athletes being ruined.
It is the athletes themselves who are the
victims in this. Spectators and athletes alike will be left questioning how
many of the results we see in Rio this summer will be purely as a result of
talent and hard work. I also feel for the Russian athletes as it seems that if
they wanted to represent their country they had very little choice but to take
drugs, I cannot imagine being in that situation.
The floodgates have opened and allegations of
cheating and corruption are appearing left, right and centre in sport. Tennis
has been the latest to fall foul with investigations into match fixing
currently underway. I just hope none of this overshadows the clean athletes and
their performances.
