Doping & corruption report a 'dark day' for athletics

Is this not beyond belief? And, if the present Chairman, the saintly Seb, has been Vice-President since 2007 of the IAAF, does that not imply an ostrich like attitude of monumental proportions?


  • I really don't know what to make of it all. To tell you the truth, what I have heard today has completely shocked me.

    So much poison in life you like to think the beauty of sport in its natural form would be exempt...Not so

    Just what is the point of anything anymore.

  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    Interesting that the iaaf are asking for Russia to explain (come up with a totally false but remotely plausible explanation) about what has been going on.

    It will be the usual farce. Russia will say everybody is wrong and misinterpreting the facts, just like they do with all of the underhand shit that they do.

    Let's face it, the Russians can invade neighbouring countries, shoot down civilian airliners and take the side of the Syrian prime monster and tell everybody that they are imagining things.

    Will it be athletics that takes the first moral stand against Russia? I hope so but I am not going to be surprised if they don't.
  • NayanNayan ✭✭✭
    I think people will just assume anyone running fast is bent and lose interest.

    Let's face it- running 2:03:00 and running 1:59:59 look pretty much the same to the spectator. If you take away the notion that you can get to those sorts of times without cheating it becomes meaningless.

    By contrast Fiotball with all its stupidities is still dramatic and entertaining. Given the way FIFA has been brought down it says a lot that athletics looks like even more of a joke.
  • Russia just seems to be trying to cheat the entire fecking world at the moment:


    Drugs at London 2012 - check!

    Alleged corruption at Sochi - check!

    Dodgy dealing at FIFA - check!


    But that nice Mr. Putin obviously has nothing at all to do with any of it.

  • So are the governing bodies sorting out their act and cleaning up their sport for the good of athletics.? Of course not. They are happy on their fat salaries and milking their expense accounts. They don't want to rock the boat any more than the Russians. But, thanks to some meddling journalist they weree forced to investigate. Seb stares politician like into the camera and says how much he wants a clean sport. Well, what was he doing all those years until the journalists forced his hand? 

  • They'll be the usual suspects on Twitter waiting for the whole thing to blow up and hoping some UK athletes get exposed.

  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    Coe might just turn out to be another platini with a history accepting huge bonus payments for work done years ago. He is very much the politician though and his statements after sample-gate broke seem very suspicious in the light of the latest findings.

    The fact that incredibly driven people will lie, cheat and steal to get glory seems very much obvious to this non football fan.
  • 15West15West ✭✭✭

    There's a lot more to come I think....

  • I suppose in the long run, it's a question of whether the doping revelations have a financial effect in terms of ticket sales and sponsorship. If they do, you can expect action...

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    The fact Coe is probably a millionaire plus plus is reason enough for some around here to condemn him. 


  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    £1,000,000 x more than one.

    Does that help?

  • Most of us didn't like him back in the coe v ovett days. We knew a smarmy bastard when we saw one. 

  • senidMsenidM ✭✭✭
    I have no idea of Lord Coe's wealth, and no interest. My point was simply that I am somewhat baffled how someone can be the Vice-President of an organisation since 2007 and yet appears to have zero knowledge of its shortcomings.

    Either he knew nothing, in which case one might question his competence and wonder what his actual role as VP entailed.

    Or.........which is where I started in OP
  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    USA. Vice President.

    A role which was described as 'not worth a bucket of warm spit'.


  • I guess it depends what his actual role as a VP was. Was it like the VP role in the US constitution, in which case he will have had little power, or was there more to it. I must admit to not knowing. However, Coe has a reputation as a man with a deep interest in the sport and as an able administrator. The question about how much he knew really is one worth asking isn't it? On another issue, he's certainly not helped himself with his effusiveness about Lamine Diack.

  • Peter C.,

    He also has the reputation of being a smarmy, self-serving Tory dickwad, and a politician to the very bone. I'm having a hard time holding both of these impressions in my mind at the same time, though I'm sure that with a little practise, the cognitive dissonance would become painless.

  • Well, I'm no Tory (far from it), and on the Coe/Ovett divide I always preferred the latter. Outside his politics and his apparent smarminess (though I've known people who've met him, who don't share his politics, who say he's a lovely bloke), however, you can't argue with his achievements as a runner, and he did a good job at organising the London Olympics, against a lot of cynicism. (And he and I support, for better or worse, the same football team.) He's been elected, it seems, partly on a cleaning out the stables kind of platform, so let's see how he does.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    The effusiveness was before Diack was outed as taking bungs.

    Coe himself said as much. If Coe knew something, he'd have to live with question of whether or not anyone else knew he knew, and whether of not that information would come to light at a later date.

    Needless to say, some would suggest he'd buy their silence,

    with a bung.


  • Yep, point taken about Diack. But perhaps he should have just laid off praising anyone at all, knowing this report was coming in...

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    From any political position, praising someone he may have suspected might be revealed in a report such as we've had, wouldn't have been considered one of his better moves.

    Coe can't have known. He wouldn't have the front to cover himself if he did.

    In the interviews immediately after the report came out. Coe looked about as pissed off as anyone could be in his position. A victim of betrayal.

    I think he's taken the gloves off in this matter.




  • Peter,

    I wasn't accusing you of being either, heaven forefend! Apologies if that's how it comes across, I would prefer to only offend people on purpose, where possible.

    However, back onto the subject of Coe- I do think that he has been taking a lot of credit that isn't his, and trying to pass a lot of bucks at the same time. If he does decide to "take the gloves off", it will be to try and use them to cover his arse.

    Meanwhile, the IOC (which seems to be a stereotypical Big Sport morally bankrupt plutocracy) appears to be preparing to cuddle up to Russia in a predictable manner. The whole thing could end with far more of a "business as usual" whimper than the over-excited press might lead us to expect.

  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    A bit like the Tory stance on Europe then.
  • I wasn't offended, just pointing out that I can share your views on his smugness and politics but still think he might be the right man for an unenviable job. On the Russia thing - I think sadly that this can't help but end up being political in the end, however independent the review and however many athletes from other countries get uncovered. Russia will fight this to the bitter end, of course.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Dick Pound summed it up when he said, "It's worse than we thought".

    That goes for the Tories, that goes for any newly elected individual to whatever 'out of control' organisation you care to think of.

    They get the keys to the door, open up and then discover what an absolute mess is hiding in there. 

    They were once as ignorant of the situation as anyone outside could be, and still are. 

    The biggest problem is getting blamed for making the mess while trying to clear it up.



  • I'd agree with you that the Tories are worse than we thought.

  • Going to go the way of cycling unfortunately. As much as I love cycling above all else, I don't trust a single rider. Don't think I ever will again. 


    Probably naive to trust any high level athlete really in any sport where a lot of money and pressure is involved. More than just a sport for many of these people, it's their career, and if your career pivots on taking the occasional substance, most probably would.


    Game theory might dictate that drug taking is the better choice actually, rationalising it in terms of gains and losses. 


    The political aspects of this stuff isn't worth paying attention to. I'd ignore any official being sanctimonious about this stuff - often the guys blowing the hardest are those knee deep in it. 


    No point getting in involved in the muck-raking. Money is corruption. Plus ça change.


  • The only thing I'd say on that is, sure, money can lead to corruption, but cheating goes way way back in all sports (look at the second ever Tour de France in 1904), a long time before real megabucks were involved - so I think it goes beyond money to glory, to esteem and self-esteem, to ego and the need to win. I wonder if money was the main motivator for athletes doped under the East German regime...

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