Team TTO | Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee | teamtto.org

29^th July, 2013

The Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC) Youth Camp concluded on Saturday 27^th July, 2013 at the Joao Havelange Center of Excellence.  The theme “Moulding Socially Responsible Athletes” guided the week’s presentations. Topics included Social Responsibility, Social Innovation, Communication, Differently able athletes and Sport, Women in Sport, HIV/Aids Awareness and Etiquette. Olympian Sherridan Kirk and national volleyball player Renelle Forde both spoke and inspired the young athletes.

The forty participants came from a number of sporting backgrounds including badminton, dragon boat, football, hockey, judo, jump rope, netball, rugby, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, swimming, volleyball and water polo.

The camp concluded with a historical enactment with the forty youth campers parading the flags of the past ten Summer Olympic Games including song, dance and formal presentations. A local twist was added with a sailor dance choreographed by Micheal Lucien of Malick Folk Performers.

Brian Lewis, the President of the TTOC gave the feature address and highlighted that the focus of the Youth Camp remains the Olympic values - Excellence, Friendship and Respect. He urged the campers to reflect upon these values in their respective clubs, schools and homes. Lewis also asked the parents present to continue to support their children’s participation in sport, and he also reminded the young athletes that they were the future of the Olympic Movement in Trinidad and Tobago.

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How tolerant are you of cheating in sport?
I suppose the first response for quite a few to a question like that is another question: What do you define as cheating in sport?
That is the sort of query that opens up a whole new debate about values and ethics, and whether these are flexible and open to interpretation based on different societies, cultures and circumstances, or should be hard and fast no matter what.
Okay, so let’s look at a specific situation.
A batsman edges to the wicketkeeper but doesn’t walk. Whether the umpire subsequently gives him out or not, is that player a cheat?
Some will say yes, without question, because it is part of the unwritten spirit of the game to acknowledge when you’re out, just as it is the obligation of a fielder to be honest about whether or not he has taken a clean catch. Not so at all, others will counter. The umpire is there as the ultimate arbiter and his decision is final and must be respected, so you accept the verdict whatever it may be, if it’s “not out” despite a blatant edge into the ’keeper’s gloves or “out” LBW even if the ball came virtually off the middle of the bat into the pad.
It’s easy to pass judgement in a vacuum, but nothing happens in isolation. There is always a context, a frame of reference that colours opinion. So let’s put some flesh on the bare bones.
Forget the present poor form of the West Indies in One-Day Internationals and imagine that the team has upset the odds in reaching the 2015 World Cup final and are taking on hosts Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground with 95,000 packed in, the vast majority urging on the home side to annihilate the Caribbean team. But the underdogs are putting up a tremendous fight. In pursuit of 268 for victory, the last pair are at the crease and have taken their side to within five runs of a stunning reversal, when the incident mentioned previously occurs. So close to glory, should he walk because he knows he’s edged it or leave it to the umpire because so much is at stake?
Not so straightforward now is it? Oh, and those of you sermonising and moralising about right being right no matter what, it’s the easiest thing to be judge, jury and executioner from the comfort of the living room or with the benefit of years of experience and wisdom which bring the realisation that games people play—whatever the context—are not nearly as important as honesty and integrity, even in the face of the greatest temptation to veer off the straight and narrow.
Sport, as a subset of life, is really about an endless series of compromises for the participant and the fan, to say nothing of the so-called media experts covering the event who, as a collective, are the reservoirs of more biasness and hypocrisy than the players and supporters put together. At the end of the day, it’s up to the individual to determine at which point down the slippery slope towards the acceptance of the “By Any Means Necessary” philosophy that he or she is not prepared to go. Of course, the mere fact that there is a “By Any Means Necessary” philosophy suggests that a significant number of people through the years in various circumstances have had no problem whatsoever sliding all the way down in pursuit of a particular objective.
One of the coaches of our tinymites group at the end of the football programme in Aranjuez last December was telling me that children five and six years of age were pulling on each other’s jerseys to stop one another going forward during practice sessions as if it was the most normal thing in the world. We both shook our heads in despair because we are from an earlier era—not a better era, an earlier era—when the journey of compromise had not reached so far.
What do you expect impressionable youngsters to do when they see superstar players whom they idolise dragging an opponent back via his shirt, or feigning injury and rolling around all over the place to try and get someone sent off, or going down in the penalty area the moment a defender gets anywhere close in the hope that officials will be fooled and the referee will point to the spot?
For all that, football remains the most popular sport in the world and the anticipation ahead of next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil is as palpable as ever, in the same way that the excitement will be at fever pitch for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro whatever the suspicions over who is taking what.
There are some who will say they don’t even watch so-and-so sport anymore because it’s not like in the good old days when it was hard but fair, when you didn’t have all these pampered prima donnas prancing about the place and being hailed as the greatest thing since sliced bread when they wouldn’t have been good enough to even be on the same field with such-and-such player from so long ago.
Ah yes, the good old days, when drug testing wasn’t so sophisticated as to require masking agents, when a “Hand of God” helped Argentina on the way to a World Cup triumph, and when West Indian legends chose World Series cricket over Test cricket.
Glory days indeed.

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Saturday 27 July 2013- Port of Spain Trinidad.

On Monday (29th July) Olympic and non olympic National Sport Organisations (NSOs)affiliated to the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee(TTOC) will convene  in General Council  for the first time since the Annual General meeting(AGM) on Monday 6th May elected a new executive committee.

The TTOC General Council will receive reports  on a number of matters including next years  Commonwealth , CAC and Youth Olympic Games .

The Council will vote on  the appointment of  a Trustee to replace Douglas Camacho, a former TTOC president  who tendered his  resignation  the day after the AGM and his appointment as one of the national Olympic committee's  two trustees.

Attorney at law Dave Williams will be proposed by the Executive committee as the person to sit with the  respected Kerston Coombs as the TTOC's two trustees.

Coombs was re appointed to a second term at the May AGM.

The General Council meeting will be   held  at Olympic House 121 Abrecromby Street ,Port of Spain from 5pm.

Lord Coe looks poised to become the most powerful man in world athletics after Lamine Diack confirmed that he would be stepping down as president of the International Association of Athletics Federations in 2015 and would be recommending a successor without the need for an election.

Diack, who turned 80 in June, did not reveal the name of his chosen heir though Coe, with whom he has forged a close bond during their battle to ensure an athletics legacy for the Olympic stadium, was sitting next to him in a London hotel on Saturday as the veteran Senegalese outlined his retirement plans.

There had been speculation that Diack might seek a fourth four-year term at the IAAF Congress in Beijing in 2015 but he insisted he it was time to pass the baton to someone younger.

“In Beijing I will give the flag to someone else,” said Diack. “I will be 82 in 2015. There is no way that I will continue. No chance. I dream of having a wonderful rocking chair and writing two or three books.”

Coe, the British Olympic Association chairman, has made no secret of his desire to take over the running of the world governing body, though fellow IAAF vice-president Sergei Bubka, the pole vault world-recorder and 1980 Olympic champion, is known to harbour similar ambitions.

However, in keeping with IAAF tradition, Diack said he hoped to avoid a contested presidential election by announcing his choice as successor and asking the Congress to support his recommendation.

“I will say who must be my successor and the reason why,” said Diack. “Then the house can decide whether they want to follow or not. If they say yes, then OK. If not, I will organise a fair competition, but expecting the one I believe to the best will win.”

History suggests Diack will get his way since there has never been a contested election for the IAAF presidency.

IAAF insiders says Diack has huge respect for Coe’s work, not just in delivering arguably the greatest ever athletics championship at last year’s Olympics but in fighting for the sport’s legacy when Tottenham proposed to bulldoze the Olympic stadium and replace it with a football-only venue.

Diack said the decision to keep the track was justified by the sight of sell-out crowds for this weekend’s Anniversary Games. “This country has done a lot for our sport,” he said. “In 2005, I told Seb his job was to make a successful Games and it was wonderful to celebrate this anniversary occasion and find the same atmosphere that we had during the Olympics.”

On the track at the Olympic Stadium Mo Farah led another ‘Super Saturday’ for Britain as memories were reignited in a party atmosphere at the Anniversary Games. Farah breezed to a 3,000 metres victory and now looks in good shape for his attempts at the 5,000 and 10,000m double at the world championships in Moscow next month.

“I wanted to make the fans proud. I’m in great shape so it’s going well for Moscow,” Farah said.

Jessica Ennis-Hill made a welcome return to action but the Olympic heptathlon champion Ennis-Hill offered few clues as to whether she will be fit to compete in Moscow after putting her injured Achilles tendon to the test.

“I’m frustrated, I need to speak to my coach and have a think. I’m running out of time a bit,” she said.

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Gold for Alexander, pb for James

...beats Olympic champ

Trinidad and Tobago track star, Kelly-Ann Baptiste earned bronze in the women’s 100 metres dash at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games IAAF Diamond League meet, in London, England, yesterday.

Baptiste got to the line in 10.93 seconds to finish third, behind Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare—the winner in an African record time of 10.79—and American Barbara Pierre (10.85).

Baptiste beat two-time Olympic champion, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican copping fourth spot in 10.94 seconds. Ivory Coast sprinter Murielle Ahoure (10.95), Jamaica’s Kerron Stewart (11.02) and English Gardner (11.08) of the United States were fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively. Another American, Carmelita Jeter felt tightness in her quadriceps, and opted out of the final.

In the qualifying round, Baptiste was fourth in heat two in 10.99 seconds. Okagbare won in 10.86, while Pierre (10.90) was second and Ahoure (10.98) third.

Fraser-Pryce dominated heat one, winning in 10.77 seconds—the fastest time in the world this year. Jeter was a distant second in 10.93, while Stewart (11.08) and Gardner (11.10) rounded out the top four.

Ahead of the London Diamond League meet, Baptiste was at the top of the 2013 world performance list with the 10.83 seconds national record run she produced at the T&T Championships, last month. She is now third, behind Fraser-Pryce (10.77) and Okagbare (10.79).

Mikel Thomas was also on show at the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games. He competed in the second men’s 110m hurdles qualifying heat, the T&T athlete finishing seventh in the race and tenth overall in 13.65 seconds. The top eight advanced to the final.

In the championship race, American David Oliver grabbed gold in 13.20 seconds. Great Britain’s William Sharman (13.26) picked up silver, while bronze went to Poland’s Artur Noga (13.31).

Reigning Olympic champion and world record holder (12.80) Aries Merritt was the fastest man in the qualifying round, topping heat two in 13.14 seconds. In the final, however, the American hit a hurdle and could not recover.

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TRINIDAD and Tobago began their campaign in impressive fashion a day later than scheduled when the Caribbean Zonal Volleyball Association (CASOVA) Junior Men’s Championships continued yesterday in Guadeloupe.

The T&T under-21 players whipped Bahamas 25-22, 25-23, 25-23, but were forced to come back in the night match to do battle against Guadeloupe in their other Group B encounter.

T&T were billed to face the hosts in their opening match on Tuesday night, but officials were forced to change the schedule because several of the T&T players had flight problems and arrived late.

Guadeloupe had defeated Bahamas in four sets on Wednesday and the winners of their clash with T&T will move straight into tomorrow night’s semifinals.

The other two teams will battle the second and third-placed outfits from Group A in tonight’s quarterfinals.

Defending champs Curacao were stunned by Barbados in five sets on Tuesday and came up against the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) the following day. The Barbadians tackled USVI when the round robin phase of the tournament ended yesterday.

The final is scheduled for Sunday night and the champs will qualify for the NORCECA (North, Central America and the Caribbean) Under-21 Continental Championships in the United States next year.

T&T took 93 minutes to dispose of Bahamas, and Nicholas Prescott led the way with 16 points, comprised of 13 kills and three aces. The winners had the overall advantage in both categories—28-19 in kills and 8-2 in aces.

This is the ninth edition of the tournament, and T&T’s best finish was claiming the bronze medal in the last two.  

In stark contrast, this country has been the dominant force in the female equivalent tournament, and just failed to secure their seventh gold medal when they lost to hosts Martinique in the final of the ninth edition, on Saturday night.

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Unbeaten so far this year in competition, T&T Olympic and World Championship bronze medal swimmer George Bovell III touched down in Barcelona, Spain, yesterday, ahead of the 15th FINA World Long Course Swimming Championship with expectations of some quick times.

He will start competing on August 2, in the preliminary heats with the semifinals and final carded for a day later at the Palau Sant Jordi Swimming and Synchronized Arena which has a seating capacity of 12,000 spectators.

The other members of the T&T contingent, Joshua and Abraham, along with coach Joseph Mc Leod, their father and team manager, George Bovell III’s father, George Bovell II arrived in Barcelona earlier in the week.

Commenting on his final set or preparations at his Michigan Wolverines camp, Bovell said, “The past few weeks have been winding down or as we say in swimming tapering with the intention of peaking at the world champs.

“I have adapted my training style and incorporated some new things in my training and am excited to see how they pay off. I hope to improve on my performances in London, and I believe that if I can get down into the vicinity of a 21.55 seconds timing from the 21.77 I went in London it will surely get on top that podium.

“The competition as always is going to be very fast and I know the races will be very close, so there won’t be any room to play around in the heats or semi-finals. Bovell who was fifth in the 50m freestyle finals 10 years at the same Barcelona Pool and seventh in Shanghai, China, two years ago said in 22.04 said he is ready to challenge the World's top sprinters.

However, the T&T bronze medallist in the World Short Course Championship last December said he was mindful of the medal threats posed by USA’s Anthony Ervin, his newest rival and 2001 winner as well as another American in Nathan Adrian, James Magnussen from Austraili, Vladimir Morrizov from Russia and Florent Manadou and Fred Bousquet from France as well as 2005 champion Roland Schoeman of South Africa.

Following the Championship, Bovell will turn his attention to the FINA World Cup in which he was second overall last year to Ervin.

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Earlier this week, I sat in on a presentation held by officers of the World Anti-Doping Association, otherwise referred to as WADA.

It was a very informative presentation, and I was able to get caught up on some of the latest developments in the world of anti-doping. Members of the audience became acquainted with what WADA is about, built awareness of some of the more commonplace banned substances and understand what was generally expected of them.

The measures taken to control doping in sports have become increasingly stringent over the years and in light of recent news surrounding the Jamaican athletes, once gods and goddesses of the track and whose reputations are now tainted, it is likely that the awareness for WADA and doping penalties will become a more regularly addressed topic amongst our athletes in this region.

The two officers who presented have done what they call “missions” at some of the bigger tournaments held in the world. They referred to experiences as recent as the London Olympics last year and through their accounts it became clear that WADA is an authority in sport that must be and will be respected..

It is easy to want to argue against the invasion of privacy experienced in various ways by the policies of WADA such as having to be watched while producing the pee sample (yes, the male or female must provide an unobstructed view of themselves while producing their pee sample), or the overkill of having to be chaperoned everywhere for every second should an athlete not be able to immediately do the drug test when notified of their selection. In major international tournaments it is required that the first four to place must do a drug test so that media conferences and other pressing commitments have been known to cause testing delays in which case the role of the chaperone becomes necessary.

Through the presentation, two things became abundantly clear. The first was that any athlete found with performance-enhancing drugs in their system will face severe consequences and just like any other law, ignorance is no excuse. The blame begins and ends with the athlete so that the onus lies on the athlete to always know what is being allowed into their system.

The second message that came through was that anyone aspiring to be an elite athlete must be ready to accept the inconveniences that come with it. Thanks to the blinding desire of many athletes in the past to win the gold medal, there is no room for trust and discretion when it comes to drug testing. Liaising closely with medical personnel who make it their duty to stay current with what WADA is doing is a great investment of an athlete’s time. Educating oneself on your rights throughout the sampling process is also a hugely beneficial proactive step. The aspiring elite athlete must understand and accept that, like it or not, WADA policies are part of earning and keeping that gold medal or any medal or placing up to fourth place.

The lifestyle of the elite athlete can be affected in many ways. For instance, athletes registered for the testing pool must follow their “whereabouts” filing obligation, This involves submitting a 60 minute time slot each day between 6am and 11pm indicating where they can be found for an entire year. While there are opportunities to have this information updated, the important thing to note here is that a certain amount of privacy is surrendered but this sort of protocol has become deemed necessary.

Another area of lifestyle that can sometimes affect our younger elite athletes in particular involves marijuana as is quite culturally commonplace in the Caribbean. Just as second-hand cigarette smoke has been proven to affect humans just by inhalation, the marijuana smoke once inhaled can cause an athlete to test positive in a drug test by WADA. As such, an aspiring elite athlete needs to have the discipline to act responsibly once they realise their environment has changed to include such activity as can happen in a variety of ways and settings moreso in island life.

With great reward always comes great responsibility. To expect otherwise is to show your unsuitability to be considered an elite athlete. There are a great many responsibilities that accompany the glam and glory of athletic stardom and recognising the requirements as mandated by WADA are in no way the least of them. As a matter of fact, breaking any of their mandates can mean losing everything else that was sacrificed on the way there.

Asha De Freitas-Moseley is a certified athletic trainer with the National Athletic Trainers’ Association of the USA. She has over ten years of experience rehabilitating athletes and members of the active population from injury to full play. She can be reached at Pulse Performance Ltd., located at #17 Henry Pierre St, St. James. Tel: 221-2437.

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“Devastated Jamaica is struggling to come to grips with athletics drugs scandal”.

This sobering headline in last Sunday’s edition of the United-Kingdom based newspaper, The Telegraph, tells the story of an athletics-crazy nation reeling from events of the last month. If the Veronica Campbell-Brown positive test in June for a substance that can mask prohibited drugs was not enough to break the hearts of her global following, then the news of Asafa Powell’s and Sherone Simpson’s A-Sample positives dealt a further crushing blow. Cynics have started to fix their already keen eyes on multiple Olympic gold medallist and self-proclaimed legend, Usain Bolt, asking themselves: “Is he next”?

Jamaican journalist Andre Lowe referred to the sense of “shock and dismay” gripping his countrymen at this time. Yet, depending on where you sit, these events may not be so bad after all. This may very well be an indication that the threat of drug use in athletics is being effectively monitored in the sprint capital of the world and that the last five years of anti-doping regulation is bearing fruit.

It was on the cusp of the 2008 Beijing Olympics that Jamaica passed its Anti-Doping in Sport Act. This legislative initiative was quickly followed by the Bahamas in 2009, Bermuda in 2011 and most recently, this country (Trinidad and Tobago). The local legislation is called the Anti-Doping in Sport Act 2013 and it received presidential assent earlier this month.

Attorney-at-law Christophe Brathwaite raised a number of thought-provoking issues in last week Thursday’s Trinidad Express. At the top of his list was the matter of athlete’s privacy rights as enshrined in the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago. Brathwaite recognised that the Act needed a special parliamentary majority as a result of the intrusiveness of the whereabouts requirements, in which athletes must name daily a 60-minute slot where they can be found with certainty.

His concern is valid and, in fact, can be strengthened when one considers that the collection of blood or urine samples is equally invasive to an athlete’s private life. Yet, it is a pleasing trend that generally speaking, most athletes globally have no difficulty with giving their whereabouts to anti-doping regulators.  Athlete-friendly measures are in place, including the web-based Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) which allows sportspersons to update their whereabouts in case of unexpected changes. Firm expectations, but fair.

The global legal system is also endorsing the anti-doping fight. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which has applauded the enactment of our legislation, noted in December 2011 that the French State Council dismissed a challenge brought by FIFPRO, the global footballers’ representative body. The council observed that the whereabouts rules “are justified by the general interest of the fight against doping and are proportional to that goal’’.

From the standpoint of implementing the legislation, the Trinidad and Tobago Anti-Doping Organisation (TTADO) is not called to re-invent the wheel. The recent successes of sister bodies like the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in the Lance Armstrong and Tyson Gay cases and the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) as they deal with the Powell, Simpson and Campbell-Brown positive tests, should go a far way in building the confidence of those persons called to serve under the local Act.

Equally, our sports personalities will have the opportunity to access various internal bodies depending on their specific need. For instance, those with special medical conditions perhaps warranting the use of prohibited substances can approach the Therapeutic Use Exemption Committee. At the same time, aggrieved athletes have recourse to the Disciplinary Panel, the Appeal Panel and in limited circumstances, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Act, therefore, seeks to articulate clear processes and procedures that recognise and safeguard the rights of affected parties.

The regulatory framework here is bolstered by the existence of WADA-approved Anti-Doping Rules since 2011 which can now be adopted pursuant to the legislation. Additionally, the five International Standards that support the World Anti-Doping Code offer more than useful guidelines for National Olympic Committees, National Anti-Doping Organisations, Governments, athletes and their support personnel. These regulations, admittedly, will take some effort to digest but when the integrity of sport is at stake, the bar must be set high and strict stipulations enforced. Firm provisions, but fair.

The days ahead will be approached with a combination of eager anticipation and sober reflection. This country’s credibility as a regional sports leader could only have been enhanced by the passing of the legislation.  It is submitted that the Anti-Doping in Sport Act 2013 neatly finds the middle ground between protecting the rights of athletes and promoting clean sport.

The Act came about after years of research, feedback and consultation. It was debated in both houses of Parliament with passion, vigour and scholarly insight.

It is a welcome addition to the laws of Trinidad and Tobago. Firm legislation indeed, but fair.

• J Tyrone Marcus, attorney-at-law, was a member of the Anti-Doping Steering Committee that assisted the legislative drafters of the Anti-Doping in Sport Act 2013

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July 25 - Pope Francis today blessed the Olympic and Paralympic flags with holy water and greeted some of the country's athletes in Rio de Janeiro as his historic tour of Brazil continued.

Francis, an Argentine elected Pope following Pope Benedict XVI's resignation in March, is on a weeklong trip to Brazil.

He blessed the flags during a ceremony in Palacio da Cidade attended by Carlos Nuzman, President of Rio 2016, and Eduardo Paes, the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro.

Francis then headed to Varginha, one of Rio's favela slums and addressed an estimated crowd of more than one million young Roman Catholics on Copacabana beach.

By visiting a favela, Francis was following in the footsteps of Pope John Paul II, who visited two during a 1980 trip to Brazil, and Mother Teresa who visited Varginha itself in 1972.

Security was tight.

In addition to the helicopters which hovered overheard, snipers perched atop nearby buildings, metal barricades held the ecstatic crowd at bay on the street and a police officer was posted every two metres apart in the slum.

Varginha is a so-called "pacified" slum - police invaded it in January and pushed out a heavily armed drug gang known as the Red Command, then set up a permanent police post in the slum that had seen virtually no Government presence for decades.

The pacification program started in 2008 as an effort to secure Rio de Janeiro before it hosts the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics.

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July 25 - BOLTUsain Bolt claimed here today that he was always destined to be one of the greatest athletes of all time and that he has been doing phenomenal things since he was a teenager - as he was forced to defend himself following a series of positive drugs tests involving top sprinters.

Jamaica's world 100 and 200 metres record holder, never short of self-confidence, was speaking here in this five-star hotel, ahead of the Sainsbury's Anniversary Games at the Olympic Stadium starting tomorrow, marking a year since the Opening Ceremony of London 2012.

Responding to questions surrounding the recent drugs scandal involving his compatriot Asafa Powell and American Tyson Gay, in which both athletes were found to have banned substances in their system, the six-time Olympic champion left everyone in no doubt that any suspicions regarding his own career can be dispelled by looking at his record of achievements.

"If you were following me since 2002, you will know that I have been doing phenomenal things since I was 15," he said.

"I was the youngest person to win the World Junior's at 15 [Bolt won 200m gold in Kingston in 2002] and I ran the world junior record of 19.93 at the age of 18, and the world youth record at 17.

"I have broken every record there is to break in every event I have ever done, so I have proven myself since I was 15, and now I am just living out my dream really.

"For me I have shown everything throughout the years that I was always going to be great."

Bolt, who will be running in the 100m event tomorrow in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park which is part of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) Diamond League series, said that it was down to the world governing body to decide on what punishments should be handed out to athletes who fall foul of the doping system.

The Powell and Gay cases has seen an increase in the calls for much more stringent tariffs to be imposed including automatic life-bans for athletes, coaches and physiotherapists from the sport.

"I was made to inspire people and to run," said the 27-year-old, who won three gold medals at London 2012, successfully defending the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay titles he had won at Beijing four years earlier.

"I was given a gift and that's what I do.

"I'm confident in myself and the people I work with and I know I'm clean so I am just going to continue running and using my talent to try and improve the sport.

"I don't make the rules and I can't determine how harsh they should be.

"In life things happen, people make mistakes, mishaps happen, so I can't really decide what the rules should be.

"That's why they have the IAAF and all these people that sit and deliberate on what the rules should be and what should happen.

"As an athlete, I have to be very careful.

"I have a great team around me, I work hard and they make sure I stay on the straight and narrow.

"For me I just stay focussed.

"There are a lot of things that are going on around me, the World Championships [in Moscow] are coming up and that's my focus, so I will let other people around me worry about what's going on."

Bolt was part of the Jamaican relay squads that won gold at Beijing 2008 and at the World Championships in Berlin a year later, and he revealed that he had exchanged messages with Powell, who was on both teams, following the news of his positive drugs test last month.

Powell, who twice held the world 100m record, has claimed that Canadian physiotherapist Chris Xeureb is responsible for his failed drugs test after allegedly providing him and team-mate Sherone Simpson a range of nutritional supplements that contained the banned stimulant oxilofrine.

"I just had one BB [Blackbery] conversation with him and I told him I was sorry to hear what was going on," said Bolt.

"It's kind of rough and it's hard, so I told him to just stay strong and stay focussed and hopefully everything will work out."

However, the fastest man of all time suggested that it was pretty simple for athletes to ensure that they are not taking anything that may be flagged up as a banned substance before pointing out that "his team" go through the list of banned substances and make sure that he is not taking anything that is illegal.

"Look, the list is there," said Bolt, who says that it is normal practice for every athlete to take vitamins and supplements.

"There is a banned list on the IAAF website and all you have to do is before you start taking vitamins, you just check the list.

"There's no problem that is what we do."

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Government, any Government, wants sound bites - a quick win which shows the public just how well their new policy has worked. The headline which vindicates their work.

And so far, where legacy is concerned, there are plenty of these good news stories. The UK economy has seen a £9.9 billion ($15.1 billion/€11.5 billion) boost in trade and investment, one in three foreigners are now more likely to visit the UK on holiday and according to the Active People Survey 1.4 million more people are taking part in sport every week than before we won the bid.

Indeed our own Sports Club Survey - the largest ever survey of British sports clubs – shows that adult membership of clubs up and down the country has risen by 20.6 per cent since 2011. So too with youngsters, an 8.4 per cent rise in members in the last year alone.

This is all really positive stuff. And with some of these demonstrable benefits clearly a direct result of the Games it'd be easy for Government, to think "job done".

But legacy isn't about sound bites. It's not about political gains. It's about us - the British people.

This is our once in a lifetime opportunity to make a fundamental change to the way we live our lives.

This legacy must be about embedding physical activity into the lives of more people than ever before - forging a new healthier, happier world for our children and our children's children.

And with this in mind it's not "job done" for Government or for us. It's "good start, what next?"

We need an effective, coherent long-term school sport policy, which accommodates a broad curriculum including both competitive and non-competitive sport. The Government's two-year primary sport premium is a good start but securing sustainable funding is crucial if we are to capture the excitement the Games created amongst youngsters and turn it into something tangible.

We need to make sport and physical activity a part of everyday lives. Cycling has become inextricably linked with the morning commute for millions of Britons through a greater awareness at a town planning level, increased exposure, political advocacy and the sheer enthusiasm people have shown for it. This must be carefully nurtured and encouraged, along with walking and running, so that we begin to see the kind of cultures that have thrived in countries like Denmark and Holland fostered in the UK.

We need to make sport and physical activity more accessible for all. The Paralympics worked wonders in challenging perceptions but only 18.2 per cent of disabled adults in England play sport once a week. Mainstream sports clubs need to be better equipped and clubs guided so that we can accommodate the burgeoning interest.

We need more volunteers. The Games Makers - such an unexpected success story of the Games - gave people a sense of what volunteering in sport could be. But we need so many more at club level. This is a legacy that everyone can contribute to, and it's time that we rolled up our sleeves and joined the near two million people who volunteer week in week out in England alone.

And crucially, we need recognition from policy-makers that sport and physical activity provision is not a drain on resources but instead a sound long-term investment. If local authorities are forced to cut their sport provision, by as much as 40 per cent in some areas if reports are to be believed, this country may save money in the short term. But future generations - perhaps even your generation - will be hit hard by this short-sightedness and health and social costs will spiral to a point which we can't reach.

We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic, our population is ageing and in the time it takes Usain Bolt to run 100 metres the NHS spends £10,000 ($15,000/€11,500)in treating preventable illness. This will only get worse. No, sport, recreation and physical activity aren't panaceas. But the research base behind their value in preventative treatment is compelling.

We've made a great start on the legacy from the Games and roots are beginning to take hold. But it's not job done, it's what next?

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Six-time Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt insists he is "clean" in the wake of recent failed drugs tests by fellow Jamaican athletes.

Compatriots Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson recently tested positive as did the USA's Tyson Gay, the fastest man in the world this year.

Bolt, who will race in Friday's London Anniversary Games, said: "I'm clean.

"But you have to be very careful as an athlete because right now there are a lot of things on the banned list."

The Jamaican added: "You might not know and you have to keep up to date with this kind of thing. It's kind of hard, but that's why you have a team to make sure.

"For me I get tested all the while. I got tested the day before yesterday, it's just part of the routine. "

The 26-year-old 100m and 200m world record holder pointed to his success as a junior athlete as evidence of his innocence.

"If you were following me since 2002 you would know that I've been doing phenomenal things since I was 15 years old," he said.

"I was the youngest person to win the world juniors at 15. I ran the world junior record in 19.93 at the age of 18. World youth record at 17.

"I have broken every record there is to break in every event I have ever done. For me, I have shown I was always going to be great."

Powell tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine at the national trials last month, and Bolt sent him a text message soon after.

"I didn't want to bombard him with questions," said Bolt. "I told him, 'Sorry to hear what was going on.' And he said, 'Yes, it's kind of rough, it's hard."'

Gay and Powell are still waiting for the results of their 'B' samples, and Bolt was keen to avoid speculation.

"I think there are a lot of details left to be discussed," he said.

The recent spate of positive drug tests has put the focus back on a sport that has been dogged by doping scandals in the past.

"It's going to set athletics back a little bit, but as a person I can't really focus on this," he added. "I still have the World Championships, everyone is stepping up their game, so I have to really focus on that.

"I am just trying to work hard, run fast and hopefully help people forget what has happened and just move on."

Bolt was speaking on the same day a Jamaica football player tested positive for a banned substance after a World Cup qualifying match against Honduras.

The Jamaica Football Federation said it was notified by Fifa that a "member of the Jamaican squad returned an adverse analytical finding on his urine sample" after the 11 June game.

Bolt became the first athlete to retain the 100m and 200m crown at the 2012 London Olympics last summer and then won his third gold of the Games when he anchored Jamaica's sprint relay team to a sensational world record.

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The way the world has been reacting to Asafa Powell’s adverse finding this week, one would think the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had finally cracked the case of a serial killer who had been on the prowl for years. His case was one among five Jamaicans who returned adverse findings from tests conducted at the national championships in June but the world hardly cares about the others, not even Sherone Simpson, the Olympic 100-metre silver medalist from 2008.

The international media and local media have been feeding like piranha on every morsel of new information that emerges; some have seemingly even manufactured their own information in this media frenzy that has been at full tilt since Sunday, July 14. The doubters have also come out, people like the head of British Athletics  Niels de Vos, who has called for four-year bans for both Powell and Gay. This, when much of the information about the cases are still to be known. This guy is a throwback to the day when they used to burn people at the stake just because someone said they were witches.

Look, in this world of professional sports and performance enhancing drugs, not every one who fails a drug test is a cheat. If you believe that you will also believe that every murder suspect is guilty of murder. That is why there are so many degrees of murder – first degree, second degree, manslaughter etc. And just like in those cases there are varying degrees of guilt when it comes to doping cases.

Here is what we know. Asafa Powell’s agent Paul Doyle hired a physical trainer on a temporary basis for a period of one month in May to keep the former world record holder healthy. The whole world knows that Powell has been having groin and hamstring injuries for the past few years and had hardly been able to finish a race since he strolled across the finish line in the finals of the 100 metre finals at the London Olympics last year.

The trainer Chris Xuereb is a Canadian who claims to have expertise as a fitness and strength trainer as well as skills as a nutritionist. Xuereb joins the MVP camp in Jamaica, preparing Powell for the national championships where he finishes seventh in the 100m finals and does not make the team as an individual representative for the World Championships in Moscow but could be considered for a relay spot considering the uncertainty surrounding defending world champion Yohan Blake’s participation at the upcoming championships.

Xuereb travels to Italy with Powell and is administering to the athlete providing him and subsequently Sherone Simpson with ‘new’ supplements that he claims were cleared when he had them checked out on GlobalDr.org, a site that lists supplements and whether they are safe for consumption by athletes. Simpson also checks the site and finds nothing to suggest that the supplements are unsafe.

On July 14, Powell and Simpson and three other Jamaicans are informed that they returned adverse findings. Powell and Simpson release statements naming the drug Methysynephrine as the stimulant that was found in their urine samples. Later that same day, news broke that Italian police raided the hotel where Powell, Simpson and Xuereb are staying and seize supplements and medication that were tested for the presence of banned substances.

On Monday, July 15, Paul Doyle, the agent who represents Powell and Simpson reveals that it was the two athletes who alerted the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA about the possibility that the supplements supplied by Xuereb could have resulted in the positive tests. WADA then alerted the Italian police who raided the trainer’s room.

On the same day Stephen Francis says publicly that he blames the athletes for breaking MVP’s supplement protocol wherein all new supplements have to be cleared by its medical team before being ingested by any athlete who is a member of the club.

Now when I look at that information, I see where Powell and Simpson have been very aggressive in trying to get to the bottom of the situation that resulted in their positive drug tests. Each athlete has been tested approximately 200 times throughout their careers and have never failed a test before now. Simpson I am told cried all night when she was informed of her test results shortly before she was supposed to compete in Madrid Spain on Saturday, July 13.  She withdrew from the race and has since been very cooperative with authorities.

People will argue that their actions are only being taken now because they have been caught and they want to try to lessen any possible sanctions against them that might come after a disciplinary panel hears the case against them. But based on the comments from Francis, who says he will back his athletes’ integrity and the information coming from Doyle, who has taken responsibility for hiring someone he clearly didn’t know enough about, and the actions of the athletes in helping the authorities get to the bottom of this drug scandal as the media is calling it, suggests to me that there was no intent to cheat from either of these athletes. I say that too, because I happen to know both personally and believe them to be people of the highest integrity.

Yes, they were negligent and let their guards down and are now facing the potential consequences for their actions but that is the only thing I believe they are guilty of. Still, those actions have cast a darker shadow over the sport that has put food on their tables this past decade. I am sure they are aware that their actions will cost them in more ways than one, but to call them cheats and to treat them like they have always cheated and intended to cheat again is wrong.

Maybe it’s time for track and field athletes to form a union and push back. Yes, there are cheats among track and field athletes but for those who aren’t there needs to be some kind of justice. Leading up to the London 2012 Olympics athletes from across the world came together to force the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to provide with a greater share of the revenue that these athletes generate for the Olympic movement, they should also rally around the idea of it being unfair to lump all athletes into the same boat when it comes to doping offences.

In Major League Baseball, the players’ union looks out for the best interests of their players and does its best to protect it’s athletes from being raked over the coals until the full story is known. Perhaps it’s time track and field do the same.

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Top Trinidad and Tobago swimmer George Bovell  says he is an underdog for a medal ahead of the FINA World Long Course Swimming Championships in Barcelona, Spain.
Bovell flies into Spain tomorrow to meet up with the Mc Leod brothers Joshua and Abraham, together with national coach Joseph Mc Leod and manager of the national team George Bovell II, all of whom have already settled in Barcelona and are awaiting the T&T Athens Olympic bronze medallist.
Bovell, a World Championships bronze medallist, is travelling from his base in Detroit, Michigan where he is fine-tuning his preparation under Michigan Wolverines head coach Mike Bottom.
Looking forward to the Worlds, Bovell said he is ready to  challenge the World’s top sprinters.
“This time around I believe I have once again done everything I can to prepare myself. I consider myself an underdog medal contender, calmly outside of the spotlight. I have taken this year to experiment with some new methods and philosophies in practice. I have been able to sustain swimming fast all year in practice and am actually undefeated for the year in competition. I am saying that because I can,” he said.
Bovell continued: “My goal is simply to improve on my strengths and compensate for my weaknesses last year, to be faster than I have ever been before. I was 21.77 last year, this year the time of 21.55 keeps resurfacing in my mind. I believe if I were to go close to that time, it would surely medal,” he said.
Bovell said he has also been  training a large amount on all four competitive strokes—freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly—to be able to once again compete and challenge the world’s best  in the FINA World Cup which begins in Eindhoven and Berlin immediately after the World Championships.
The Mc Leod brothers booked their tickets Saturday to the World Senior Long Course Aquatics Championships, during the National Age Group Long Course Swimming Championships at the Marlins Swim Club’s Olympic-sized pool in Westmoorings.
Bovell splashes off in his main event the Men’s 50m free on August 2. But Joshua Mc Leod will be the first T&T swimmer to dive into action when he lines up in the heats of the Men’s 50m butterfly on Sunday. His brother Abraham dashes into action in the preliminaries of the 50m breaststroke Tuesday.

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Asafa Powell emphasised his desire to return to athletics as he spoke for the first time about his failed drug test.
The Jamaican sprinter, the former 100 metres world record holder, tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine at the national trials in June.
The 30-year-old is now waiting for the result of his B sample, which may yet clear his name, as athletics tries to recover from one of its biggest drug scandals.
“I have never thought about it (retiring),” Powell was quoted by the Jamaican Gleaner as telling a media conference in Kingston.
“I was just shocked by the news. I have been thinking a lot but never once thought about giving up.
“I am still training. I consider this an off year, but I am still working hard, training, going to the gym almost every day.
“It’s very unfortunate that I will not be going to the World Championships, but there is a lot more to go.
“There is a World Championships in two years’ time again and then the Olympics. So there is a lot to look forward to.”
Sherone Simpson, a three-time Olympic medallist and a member of Powell’s MVP training group, also tested positive for the same stimulant.
The pair’s manager, Paul Doyle, has pointed the finger of blame at their trainer, Canadian Chris Xuereb, who only began working with the sprinters in May.
Xeureb, though, issued a robust statement denying he was responsible and claiming he was being made a scapegoat.
A tearful Simpson appeared in front of the press alongside Powell today and said: “I would like to make it clear that we are not blaming anyone.
We were asked if we were taking any new supplements, and we told the authorities where we got it from.”

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When I accepted the invitation to write this column, it was my intention not to come across as an expert but rather to share some insight that might hopefully help someone somewhere. This week however, with the looming FINA World Long Course Swimming Championships in Barcelona fast approaching and my main race, the 50 metres freestyle just seven days away, I can’t think of anything more pertinent to write about than this. The hand of fate is on me now as I head to Barcelona to face my destiny tomorrow.
Exactly ten years ago I was doing the same thing. In 2003, I went to the World Championships that coincidentally were held in Barcelona at this same time of year to represent the red, white and black as a medal contender having recently broken onto the world scene by placing fourth in the 2001 World Long Course Championships and seventh in the 2002 World Short Course Championships.
Unfortunately, that year I had to settle for fifth in the world. Now, as a veteran, I am once again returning with a chance for glory.
Some people might think that I am coming full circle. A circle is just two dimensional. It is true that I am circling. However, I envision this to be more of a three dimensional spiral, having circled around in line with the same place as ten years ago, but now on a higher level, with ten years’ more experience, personal growth, insight and accolades earned by relentlessly striving to represent Trinidad and Tobago despite the obvious challenges at this highest level in the crucible that is being a fixture at the top of international sport.
After a year of sacrifice, changes, and a regime of grueling hard work that few can relate to, I believe that this year I can be faster than I have ever been before. Will it be fast enough to get to the top of the podium? Therein lies the drama of sport. That’s why we put ourselves to the ultimate test to seek the ultimate truth. Can I do it?  If it was a sure thing there would be no competition, instead the medals would just be mailed out.
The past two weeks in training have been what we call in swimming, the taper.
Every day gets progressively easier with the intention of allowing the body to recover from the months of hard work, while retaining the gained strength, speed and fitness. At this point, the hay should be in the barn so to speak. You must have faith in the work that you have done. Too much training now won’t make you any better, just more tired at the competition.
It takes an experienced athlete and coach to trust the taper process and rest, to abstain from hard work in spite of the building excitement. Inexperience may lead an athlete or coach to doubt the necessity of the rest and compel them to constantly test their form to ascertain if they are on track, which ironically leads to a poor final performance.
Every athlete knows that this taper period is the calm before the storm. As soon as they step on that plane for the flight to the venue, the intensity and speed of the inevitable flow of life’s events seems to pick up. This storm that lies ahead is shaping up to be a hurricane. The FINA World Long Course Championships is undoubtedly the single biggest competition of this year, but to up the ante, this then flows straight into the first two stops of the FINA Swimming World Cup in Eindhoven and Berlin.
The World Championships are like a yearly job review with all the pressure of the common entrance examination. I will admit that deep down my biggest fear is of a worst case scenario in which I were to have a less than stellar showing, or fall ill, and have my critics once again calling for my retirement.
Regardless of the result, I believe that my best is still to come and do not intend to retire until I have attained my full potential. I do it for all those people who can’t but wish they could, because I am blessed with the ability and I can, and because it’s a beautiful thing. I am also very grateful that I work hard at something I love. If you are not working hard you don’t deserve to do it.
Unlike ten years ago where I focused on the 200m Individual Medley and the 200m freestyle, the main focus for me at these upcoming World Long Course Champs will be the 50m freestyle, the same as in the London Olympics. This is actually the closest race in all of sport, with the entire final field often squeezed into mere hundredths of seconds.
It never ceases to amaze me that the competitors all come from such different backgrounds, with different training methods, diets, varying strengths and weaknesses, yet are all so close. This race is also exceptionally cruel, with glory and heartbreak separated by fingertips and less than the blink of an eye. These margins provoke you despite winning or losing to think long and hard about “what if?”
This drama—coupled with the fact that the top contenders in the 50m freestyle are some of the most physically gifted individuals on the planet, all exceptionally strong and athletic with the average height of a final field being around six foot six inches tall—makes for a very popular spectator event.
Just like with track and field, there is something very special about the profound simplicity of being the fastest human being.
Being an athlete is a process. It is always a work in progress, it is never final, the most important results are always the ones from the next competition. A great athlete is always analysing and learning from past performances, both good and bad. There is never a perfect race. Something can always be improved upon, strengths need to be made more powerful and weaknesses must be addressed and compensated for.
This season, I took the opportunity to experiment with some new training methods and philosophies. I could be onto something. It may be risky, but I had to make some changes. The year after the Olympics is the best time to do such things.
How could I continue to do the exact same thing and expect different results? For this season, after participating in an antimalarial and drowning initiative in Uganda I returned to my pre-Olympic training base at the University of Michigan. I resumed working with coaches Mike Bottom and Mark Hill and sought input from the one constant in my swimming career this past decade, Anil Roberts. I set forth on a programme that emphasised sustainable speed, recovery from hard work, and focused on swimming fast all year long in practice as opposed to the traditional approach of just at the end of the season.
I might add that so far this year, I am undefeated in competition. I have also been inspired by, and have adopted elements of the Ido Portal method of movement development and have become an advocate of the paleo diet. I now have greater mobility and I am the strongest that I have ever been in my life. We will see if that counts for something in Barcelona.
Representing T&T in swimming has always made me feel like the underdog against the traditional swimming powerhouses from the developed world that tend to look down upon us with a condescending attitude. It has given me great satisfaction to shake up their preconceived notions for the past 12 years that I have been in the world’s top 10. Once again, this time, I find myself in the comfortable, familiar position of waiting patiently just outside of the spotlight. It took a car accident and a bruise on my brain to bring me face to face with the prospects of losing this, to really make me appreciate these opportunities, and to inspire me to race every race like it’s my last, because one never knows...

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This is not the time to be greeting an Aussie with "G'day, sport" unless you want a broken nose.

Alas, there are now many more bad days than g'days for Australian sport. Last weekend's Test Match debacle, leaving them 2-0 down to England in cricket's Ashes series was indicative of the malaise that has struck down a nation, causing it to lose both pride and the plot.

Over a dozen years Austalia have gradually slid out of the sports super power league.

Once right on top they are now well and truly Down Under.

At the turn of the century, Australian sport was the envy of every nation throughout the world, particularly to us in Britain.

The Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 were an overwhelming triumph, with the host nation coming fourth in the medal table: a remarkable achievement for an island with a population of just 22 million people.

Just 13 years ago the Olympic Games was not the only sporting arena in which the Australians were excelling. Their national teams were World Cup holders in rugby union and rugby league; their cricket team had won the World Cup and also held the Ashes, while Pat Rafter had held, albeit briefly, the world number one tennis ranking. Australian sporting greats were superstars the world over.

Cathy Freeman was their Jess Ennis, the dominant face of the Sydney Games. Ian Thorpe was the greatest swimmer the world had seen. Shane Warne was the best bowler of all time and the Australian Institute of Sport was the envy of the sporting sporting world.

Move on to 2012 and Australia suffered their worst recent Olympic performance, finishing tenth in the medal table with just seven golds, less than half the 16 they collected in Sydney, and just two places above Britain's competitive contingent from Yorkshire.

It is over a decade since Australia had a men's winner at Wimbledon, (Lleyton Hewitt), a domain they once dominated; 23 years since a woman (Evonne Goolagong Cawley). Greg Norman was the last Aussie to win The Open golf championship, in 1993.

Gone too are the days when Australian ruled the pool. An angry media dubbed 2012 a "disaster" for swimming after just one gold medal, in the women's freestyle relay, their first Games without an individual swimming gold since Montreal 1976.

Cycling, track and rowing were equally disappointing.

"We are on a bit of a downer at the moment," admits their greatest-ever swimmer Ian Thorpe. "We set ourselves lofty heights but just being an Australian won't win you a medal any more."

The Thorpedo, five times an Olympic gold medallist, adds: "We've probably always assumed that our programmes are actually better than they really are. People have given us too much credit for programmes which they think exist but really don't.

"For instance, I doubt we are doing a good enough job in the identification of young athletes. And in Australia we have become too accustomed to being too successful. We've been too complacent and we have layers of bureacracy in sport which detract from where some of the performances should go. We have get back to basics."

Ominously he warns:" There are lessons to be learned from what has happened in Australia to Team GB in the future."

Perhaps the most important one is not to cut funding. After Sydney 2000 Australia took the opposite course to Britain, where we have invested heavily in sport.

In Australia, the cuts have led to Australia's best coaches going abroad, not least to the UK. The brain drain syndrome.

Moreover, earlier this year a Crime Commission report found that doping and match-fixing were present in a variety of sports within Australia, while also uncovering links between sports administrators and organised crime.

According to the World Cup-winning England rugby coach and British Olympic Association sports director Sir Clive Woodward Australian sport is also disfigured by indiscipline.

In an illuminating article London's Daily Mail he writes: "It has been an extraordinary few weeks for Australian sport and one that brings into sharp focus the alarming decline of a great sporting nation.

"There have been embarrassing episodes of indiscipline - from David Warner throwing a punch at Joe Root to Digby Ioane failing to inform the Wallabies he was due in court on an assault charge.

"We have seen rugby sides in Australia celebrating 60-point defeats because they gave the Lions a 'good fight', displaying the same Corinthian spirit for which they used to mock the British.

"Then came the astonishing decision to sack cricket coach Mickey Arthur and replace him with Darren Lehmann a fortnight before the Ashes.

"All these problems stem from the same issue - coaching. Australia has lost its affinity with the most crucial ingredient for success.

"This is a nation blessed with wonderful athletes but they are being let down by an army of administrators who have no understanding of the coaching process, and some of the coaches seem more concerned with keeping their jobs than winning. "

Woodward says that while he lived for a time in Australia in the eighties he travelled frequently to the Institute of Sport in Canberra, a facility built with the sole purpose of "achieving supremacy in sport", and realised Australia was so far ahead.

"Sporting success was high on the political agenda. Back home in 1989, I realised we in Britain were just as passionate about sport, but we had not put in place a process of excellence. We have since changed for the better and surpassed the Aussies in many respects. This, I fear, is because Australia has forgotten the value of coaching.

"To win in sport you need world-class athletes and world-class coaches. The support structure is missing.

"Australia had a dreadful Olympics last summer. The reaction was to cut funding for athletics and swimming by 3.8 per cent and 5.8 per cent respectively. They redesigned programmes with an emphasis on 'team building' and addressing 'psychological issues' for athletes.

"So many experts tell me, 'Concentrate on measuring performance and winning will take care of itself'. That is a brilliant excuse for coming second, which was never the Australian way. It is about winning, plain and simple.

"I was surprised by the attitude in Australia after the first Lions Test. Australia had just been beaten and nobody was upset because it had been a good game. That's not the Australian mentality I remember.

"But perhaps the most telling problem is that Australian sport has lost the art of handling mavericks.

"Great teams are made of great individuals. Mavericks are nothing new in Australian sport - think Shane Warne and David Campese - but now if you do not fit into the system you are exiled and labelled a trouble-maker."

After 2012 the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) President John Coates blamed the failure of his country's athletes on a shortage of Government funding and a lack of compulsory sport in schools.

The Australian government allocated nearly £220 million ($338 million/€255 million) to sports programmes in its 2010 budget, but the £35 million ($54 million/€40 million) earmarked for Olympics-focused high performance sports was only half what the AOC had lobbied for.

Britain appears, for now at least, to be avoiding this pitfall. Funding for elite sport won't be not be cut over the next four years, guaranteeing £500 million ($846 million/€638 million) for Olympic and Paralympic sport ahead of Rio 2016.

However Ian Thorpe is right in saying there a sombre warning for Britain post 2012. Australia's is a predicament to which we should pay close attention if we do not want to find ourselves in a similar position in a decade's time.

Sport was Australia's advert to the rest of the world, riding high on the back of the Sydney Games in 2000, almost as glorious for them as London's was for Team GB. But look at them now.

Olympic also-rans, savaged by the British and Irish Lions and now struggling on an embarrassingly sticky wicket in the best-of-five Test series.

If England retain the Ashes, which Australia desperately need to restore their battered sporting pride, it will be their fourth victory in five series. Woodward reckons Australian cricket has virtually given up on the idea of winning them.

Of course it is easy to kick a nation when it id down but I happen to love Australia, and the Aussies.

So I'd be more than happy to see a return to the days when there was an abundance of high-spirited sporting wizards of Oz. World sport needs them.

I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but "C'mon Aussies, c'mon!" Starting with those Ashes, let's see you make a fight of it.

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