Is there anyone now who takes athletics seriously as a sport rather than as a form of human freakery? The forced admission of Marion Jones that she was a drugs cheat is merely the latest in a long line. A newsworthy story would be the conformation of a winner who was entirely clean.

The significance of the Jones story, of course, is that her disqualification will hand the 2000 Olympic title to another cheat, Ekaterini Thanou.

What a farce. The idea that British taxpayers - and especially London council tax payers - are going to have to fork out billions of pounds to stage the Olympics in 2012 is made even worse by the fact that athletics is so central a part of the 'games' (for which read, more accurately, lab experiments).

Cycling was destroyed as a sport - in the eyes of anyone who isn't a cycling fanatic - by drugs. I'd say athletics has passed the same point. The point is, however, that athletics is no longer fit to be bothered with by anyone concerned with true sport.