AOB: Testing times for Christine

The world athletics championship has passed me by a bit. I suspect I’m not the only sports fan in this country (or across the globe) who couldn’t even feign interest for what is essentially an event held to fill the gaps between Olympics’ (or should that be Olympicses?).

Nevertheless, with nothing better to do early on Saturday afternoon I decided to watch the relay finals in the hope that they might quicken my pulse somewhat. They didn’t, but I did witness the most parochial display of punditry I’ve seen since Ian Wright’s antics at the last world cup.

The culprit was our former champion runner, Steve Cram, who launched into a passionate defence of Christine Ohurougu, the athlete who won gold for Team GB in last weeks 400m race. Ohurougu has just completed a 12-month ban for missing not one, but three drugs tests. Because of this some members of the press and public have seen fit to criticise her, suggesting that her victory may not have been, ahem, entirely down to her natural speed.

“What people on the outside don’t understand,” opined Cram, during his long defence of our honest British boys and girls. “Is that these athletes are taking drug tests every day. Christine has tested negative on many occasions, and doesn’t deserve the kind of criticism she is getting now.”

Well if they’re getting tested every day how did she manage to miss three tests Steve?

Drug testing is, as Cram rightly points out, a massive part of Athletics nowadays. Ohurougu is obviously a talented sprinter, but cannot expect to neglect such a large part of her professional life and not get criticised by 'people on the outside'. Cram's attempt to try and turn the issue round and suggest that she is the one who has got a raw deal is unlikely to win her any new fans either.