To the list of things that combine boredom and dismay in equal measure can be added a new one: aqua-jogging your way to a one-hour decathlon.

It wasn't meant to be like this. The slope was already steep enough as it was - learning nine new events from scratch in just over three months, bolting a 1500m on the end and trying to do it all in the sort of time that Terry Griffiths used to take sizing up a single safety shot.

That was before last week's hamstring horror while training with Dean Macey. Unsurprisingly, if there's one thing that makes decathlon training even harder than normal, it's having an injury that prevents you from running, jumping and throwing. Trouble.

I'd been due to head up to Loughborough to do some pole vault training with British number one Steve Lewis. I'd been looking forward to it immensely. Steve is a man who loves his event so much that he talks to his poles. If a little bit of that happy madness could rub off on me, I'd reasoned, my chances on 30 August could only be improved.

So much for best-laid plans. Instead of leaping with Lewis, it's on the couch with Craig - otherwise known as Dr Ranson, physio for UK Athletics and the exactly the sort of nerve-calming expert a panicking man needs in these circumstances.

My decathlon dream hangs on Craig's diagnosis. If it's a grade three tear, I'm finished, at least for the next three months. I don't think it is - I can walk, even if it hurts, and there was no popping sound when I felt it go on the Canvey Island track a week before - but I'm no medical expert. Equally it feels worse than a grade one (10 days of recovery, back to it). Grade two? Even within that classification, there are a whole range of smaller categories. A bad grade two and there'll be no hurdling until August. There'll certainly be no sprinting, and that means no long jumping, no squat-thrusts, no return to the Dean and Daley Show until the competition is within touching distance.

There is prodding. There is poking. There are movement tests and strength assessments, grimaces at the stiffness of key muscles and shakes of the head at a laughable lack of flexibility in others.

First the bad news. "It's a grade two," says Craig. "Your hamstrings are ridiculously tight - you can't get your leg past 60 degrees, while Dwain Chambers can put his foot past his ears - your hip flexors are a mess, and your IT band is standing out like a fence-post."

Then the good. "It's a low-end grade two. Depending on your rehab, we're looking at around 22 days."

I limp down to the indoor track and watch Steve and training partner Kate Dennison in action as I do the sums in my head. 22 days - let's call it three weeks. Add in the time already spent out of action, and I'll have missed just under a month of training. It's not ideal - I've only done two sessions in each of the technical disciplines, and I'll be losing at last eight more now, let alone losing the conditioning and general fitness so necessary for the event - but it's certainly not disastrous.

I can still compete. I can still make it.

I'll be as undercooked as gazpacho, certainly, but then I was always going to be. Gazpacho Fordyce - wasn't he an idealistic forebear who went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War?

There is much at be learned from Loughborough. Watching Lewis and Dennison leap to new PBs from a vantage point just a few feet from the uprights teaches me more about vaulting than any number of articles on the internet ever could, particularly with national coach Steve Rippon talking through everything that's going on.

The role of UKA's high performance centres becomes patently obvious - the best athletes in each event pushing each other on, coaches always on hand, with perfect all-weather facilities at their disposal and expert physio back-up just a shot put away in the same building.

Then there's the perspective on my own injury problems. I know what's happened is almost meaningless outside the narrow confines of a personal challenge, but it's brought home by the sight of Goldie Sayers wandering through the indoor training area without a javelin anywhere near her.

Sayers is out for six weeks with a partial stress fracture of her lower back. She's hoping to be back in time for the World Championships in Berlin, but it's going to be tight. And painful. And probably need some big injections with some very long needles.

Javelin isn't just a three-month experiment for Sayers. It's her life. She's been the best in Britain for six years, missed an Olympic medal by just 38cm and was targeting Berlin as her first global podium.

Despite all that, she's resolutely upbeat. There's no whingeing and no feeling sorry for herself, just an offer of a throwing lesson when my own comparatively minor injury has healed up.

The example has been set. No moaning, no what-ifs.

For bedtime reading, a snappy little article from the Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy called 'Comparison of Two Rehabilitation Programs in the Treatment of Acute Hamstring Strains'. For the battered body, hardcore deep-tissue massage.

It's enough to make the aqua-jogging seem positively pleasurable.

What do you mean you missed it? It's a "unique, global event held every year" to commemorate the first time the International Olympic Committee (IOC) met for champagne and cigars. And it's "the most celebrated Olympic event after the Games".

It is also exactly the kind of self-reverential mythologizing the rest of the sporting universe finds so irritating about the Olympics. Does the IOC really need a next "most celebrated Olympic event"?

No, of course it doesn't. The Games are big enough to speak for themselves, which is why I went along to Waltham Forest Town Hall a couple of weeks ago to hear how London 2012's architects are selling the project to cynical Londoners. If it's possible to have a fascinating meeting on council premises this was it.

The headline acts were London 2012 organising committee (Locog) chairman Sebastian Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson, but they were supported by a starry cast that included Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) chairman John Armitt, Paralympic legend Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson and 850 local residents.

The Q&A format seemed simple but was delicious in potential for embarrassment. The likes of Armitt and Coe are Federer-like when it comes to returning grenades from us hacks but I wondered how they would deal with curveballs from the public.

I also wanted to know what the humble tax-payer was most concerned about. Would it be the same list of grumbles that the professional moaners read from or would punters tap a new vein of negativity?

The answers to these questions - and many more - were illuminating and, by and large, heartening.

Cards on table time, I'm what Johnson would call an "Olympic maniac" (he admitted to becoming one himself) but I'm only too aware that many of you are less enamoured with London 2012 than me and some of you are downright hostile to the idea.

This upsets me and I can't help thinking far more people would see things my way if they stopped worrying about the price of the Games and started thinking about their value for money. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The mayor was the first to speak in Walthamstow and he did what he does best: a mildly amusing two-minute riff on why x is good/bad for London. In this case x was the Olympics and they are going to be great.

He likened the Games' potential for positive change to a "runaway horse that we must lasso", said London's Olympic Park would be the biggest urban park built in Europe for 150 years apart from an inferior one in "Dusseldorf or some such place", and managed to use the word "riparian" in context. Like I said, vintage Boris.

He also said bidding for the Games was "absolutely the right thing to do" and he would the same thing "twice over".

Armitt followed the mayor, which was a hard on a man who would make Gordon Brown sound like Peter Kay, but 2012's foreman also did what he does best: dryly delivered good sense, which is, I suppose, what Gordon is aiming at too.

He left the grand claims to Boris but chipped in with solid supporting arguments about how 75p of every £1 spent on the site is going on "physical legacy" - bricks, mortar and riparian parks to you and me.

Tanni was next up and spoke eloquently about sport's ability to inspire, while Baroness Ford, the boss of the new Olympic Park Legacy Company, used her first public speech on the Olympics to assure everybody that unlike previous hosts we won't be leaving behind anything unloved and unused.

Mayor of Hackney Jules Pipe was the fifth speaker and he spoke on behalf of the Olympic boroughs (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest) and their tax-payers. It was an interesting turn as he likened his role to being the annoying kid in class always asking teacher "why?"

Be it burying power lines, putting in sewerage for the thousands of homes that will be built in the Olympic Park or anything else to do with the construction of what is, in effect, a new mini London borough, Pipe is our man.

Worthy stuff addressed it was now time for Coe to give his 10,000th explanation of why hosting an Olympic Games is a pleasure not a chore. Practice clearly makes perfect as the double Olympic champion is by far the best advocate the London 2012 team possess. He might also be the most coherent spokesman for sport in general in this country.

Coe started his pitch by reminding the audience of his strong connections with the area through his time as captain of Haringey Athletic Club, whose colours he wore with distinction throughout his incredible career on the track.

During his 1980s pomp, 40% of his Haringey team-mates lived on the Broadwater Farm Estate, then a byword for crime and deprivation. The well-spoken, future Conservative MP fitted in just fine, though. Haringey Athletic Club was a "key anchor point" for that troubled community.

These early experiences of sport's ability to refresh the parts other activities cannot reach made a profound impression on Coe. He now describes sport as Britain's "most extraordinary hidden social worker" and for him that is why we pitched for the Games.

I agree with him. The regeneration of a part of London that had become a toxic dump, the long overdue construction of some decent sporting infrastructure in the capital and the opportunity to showcase our country on the global stage are all well and good. But the real benefit of London 2012 is that sport will be driven higher up the agenda in this country, and that is a benefit for everybody, not just Londoners.

Because Coe is right. Sport can do things no other policy tool has proved capable of achieving.

A positive alternative to gang culture for disaffected teenagers? Check. An effective answer to obesity and other public health concerns? Yep. A recession-resistant industry that entertains and inspires millions? Absolutely.

This is the message the Olympic project's supporters should be repeating up and down the country (starting with the London 2012 Open Weekend that Coe announced for 24-26 July) because this is the stuff you cannot put a price on - £9.3bn to change Britain's attitude towards sport sounds like a bargain to me.

A lot of the questions from the floor in Walthamstow were about parochial issues, mainly to do with the area's patchy transport links, but by far the biggest cheers came when the focus shifted to sport.

That is why I am willing to forgive the IOC for its Olympic Days, pretentious rhetoric and shadowy politicking because it also puts on the most inspirational event on the global calendar. And we're hosting the next one, so let's not squander it.

Olympic bosses are still struggling to persuade the sport to move away from the Excel complex in east London and move to Wembley.

2012 need boxing to switch venues because they have ditched a plan to build a temporary arena near the 02 at Greenwich to save money and are playing chess with some of the sports.

But people in boxing,like badminton which was offered the same deal,don't fancy the long journey from the Olympic village at Stratford to north London.

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The fact is there aren't many suitable indoor venues which are big enough for the Games. That's why the capital needs the Olympics.

What do you think?

Somebody suggested the Royal Albert Hall the other day, obviously not a Proms fan, because, of course, it would clash with the concerts.

And we're also expecting to see an array of "Olympic Proms" concerts before and after the Games and you can't expect Sir Simon Rattle to move aside for a few Cuban heavyweights.

The 02 is obviously already taken for gymnastics.

There are companies which turn outdoor stadiums into indoor ones. Could it be possible to turn West Ham's ground into an indoor stadium for boxing? Or would it work at the Emirates which has excellent facilities?

The people in London boxing I've talked to want the sport to stay in east London, which is its spiritual home in the capital.

Surely there must be an alternative to asking boxers to trek across the capital? Remember, this is the Games where athletes were promised they would compete not commute.

At the Olympic Museum wherever you turned there were sports administrators playing politicians and not a few real-life politicians taking time off from coping with the recession to show their mastery of sports.

So there was Mario Pescante, the Italian sports minister, just as he was on the point of explaining why his Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had sold Kaka to Real Madrid (it seems Berlusconi was keen to look more of a realist in these bleak times), he was dragged away to talk to the governor of Tokyo, a man who says the bid process is more taxing then managing a city of 13 million people.

Just as the Japanese and Italian politicians conferred around a corner came the governor of the central bank of Brazil leading to a supporter of Rio saying exultantly: "This is the new reality in these times of economic hardship. When did the governor of the central bank of a country come to address members of the International Olympic Committee? He did so to explain why Rio can and will be able to finance the Olympics."

Words which would have interested Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago, who not long before that had emerged from presenting the city's case to the 93 International Olympic Committee members present.

The Rio supporter's words were certainly meant as a jibe to Chicago, which alone of the four 2016 bids - Rio, Madrid and Tokyo - is privately financed as all United States bids have always been. Except when the symbols of American capitalism such as the car industry are in ruins it is hard to see how a private sector bid can match a government-supported one.

This may explain why the IOC members grilled Chicago more than any other bid. Twenty-two questions which made Chicago overrun its time. Some in the Tokyo team felt insulted they had not merited so many questions although the general view was that this showed members had doubts about Chicago's financing. But one member I spoke to gave Chicago high marks for its presentation.

Chicago was also the only one who came to Lausanne complete with their own anti-group. As IOC members trooped into the museum they were met by No Games Chicago citizens and handed a book of evidence which made the case why: it lacks money, it is not competent, it lacks infrastructure and does not have public support.

Chicago's bid team response is that the no group does not amount to much and when the IOC evaluation commission visited the city the no group could not muster much support. All I can say is the book of evidence would make a very convenient door-stopper.

The show stopper for Chicago would, of course, be Barack Obama arguing the case for his home city. Chicago is keeping its counsel as to whether he will come to Copenhagen in October when the decision is made. There is little doubt their rivals are worried his star factor would overwhelm them. For Wednesday's meeting Obama did little, no videos just two still photos. But his senior adviser provided a video and on Wednesday morning Chicago e-mailed in some joy that Obama had effectively appointed a European-style sports minister, something that has always been alien to the American tradition of organising sports but it seen as showing his concern for sports.

The effect of star personalities having an impact on bids has been a factor ever since 2005 when Prime Minister Tony Blair won London the 2012 Games, reinforced by the Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin securing Sochi the 2014 Winter Olympics. The IOC has even considered whether they should ban the presence of heads of state and government and decided they could not. All 2016 bids are debating who could possibly match Obama, with the Japanese team keen for the presence of their crown prince and princess - they are unlikely to come.

Rio, of course, will have the feisty President Lula but in addition their trump card is the emotional one of no games ever having been held in Latin America. How can the Olympics be universal if it ignores such a huge part of the world? Chicago is certainly getting riled by it and at least their media is wondering if this not the sort of emotional blackmail that should not be allowed.

Far removed from sports but just the sort of thing that is top of the agenda when sports meets politics as it always does at the Olympics.

Nevertheless, the impact of the worldwide economic downturn may explain why the IOC is changing one of the major planks of its policy and allowing pay channels the opportunity to bid for the right to screen the Summer and Winter Games from 2014 onwards.

The blue riband events, such as the 100m, and the opening and closing ceremonies would, he insisted, still be available on free-to-air stations.

On top of that, any pay channel would be required to show 200 hours and 100 hours of action from the Summer and Winter Games respectively on terrestrial television. "Our mantra," says Rogge, "is maximum audience, audience before revenue."

Interestingly, Rogge told me that the IOC has had fruitful discussions with former Football Association executive director David Davies, who is heading the first review in 10 years of the 'crown jewels' list that guarantees major sporting events are broadcast on free-to-air TV in Britain.

When I put it to Rogge that, in Britain, sports like cricket had made promises to preserve free to air broadcasting then subsequently sold all the rights to pay television, he responded sharply that the Olympics was different.

Reflecting on the Games more generally, back in August, just after Beijing, Rogge had emphasised to me that China had taken the Olympics to a new level and London could not afford a drop in standards.

Now, in the wake of the downturn, he was keener to talk about how the two Games represent two very different countries with vastly different traditions. Beijing was the Games of the world's most populous country, he said, but London will be the Games of the nation that invented modern sports.

Rogge admitted London may have to rework its budget to ensure it is ready to host the biggest sporting event in the world, but insisted corners must not be cut when it comes to the facilities offered to competitors. They, he said, are sacrosanct.

Interviewing Rogge is always like a visit to your family doctor. There is something calm and reassuring about his manner, irrespective of how momentous any declarations he may make may be.

He once suggested, after persistent questioning from me, that he would like to get me under his surgeon's knife - he used to practise as one - but that was when the IOC was recovering from the dark days of the Salt Lake corruption crisis and before the miracle of Sydney, which led to the rebirth of the Games.

The only time he seemed weary was when I asked him about drugs and the ongoing disagreement with football about the 'whereabouts' scheme. Rogge has little patience with sports officials who seem to agree on issues at conferences then suggest later that they did not know what they were agreeing to.

He made the drugs issue one of the central themes of his presidency and is proud that much progress has been made. But he accepts that, like death and taxes, drugs in sport will always be with us. The aim is to make it as difficult as possible for the drugs cheats by introducing proper policing.

This dismissal is delivered in a 60-a-day growl that does nothing to hide his distaste for the idea of women's boxing.

For five minutes last week I felt something similar myself.

I had just walked into the Amateur Boxing Association of England's (ABAE) 2009 Women's Championships and two young fighters were in the ring, slugging it out, in front of a vociferous crowd.

One boxer was clearly more experienced than the other and while she punched in straight lines, her smaller opponent punched in wide arcs. The latter was probably the better athlete but her geometry was a disaster.

In truth, it wasn't a great fight and that troubled me for a few reasons.

I had to come to the Boxing Manchester Centre of Excellence to see if women's boxing was ready for inclusion in the Olympics, if it was "developed" enough to warrant such status.

Mediocre boxing, whatever the gender, isn't pretty, but this was a bout for a national title - it should have been better.

The issue of quality, and how far down it goes, is essential to female boxing's case. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) looked at it in 2005 and decided the strength in depth - what it calls a sport's "universality" - wasn't there.

But the latest smoke signals from Lausanne suggest the IOC believes those concerns over easy medals and/or dangerous mismatches no longer exist.

In a remarkably unguarded interview, IOC boss Jacques Rogge effectively sounded the bell for the first Olympic women's boxing competition.

"Conditions are totally different now. The timing is right, because the sport has evolved a lot," said Rogge last month.

But during those first few minutes in Manchester I had my doubts.

There was nothing wrong with the boxers' fitness or footwork but they were ragged in defence. And every time they took a punch they went to pieces: a sure sign of a novice.

Having admired the textbook techniques of female athletes in almost every sport under the sun, I was surprised to see pugilism's defensive skills, the sport's basics, so unevenly displayed.

But - and it's a big but - as the contest came to its conclusion, my misgivings were receding, and when the bell rang for the final time the boxers embraced with broad smiles across their unmarked faces.

I was getting over the shock of seeing women hitting each other and was starting to realise women's boxing is different to men's boxing in the same way women's tennis is different to men's tennis. Not worse, just different.

The next bout, a much closer affair between two boxers with sound techniques, reinforced my growing belief that I was watching potential Olympians. And by the time Natasha Jones took on Alana Murphy for the 64kg title, I was convinced.

The final score was 17-1 to the 24-year-old Jones, which suggests Murphy was humiliated. She wasn't. She was just given a lesson by an opponent a few fractions of a second quicker...but then fractions of a second are eternities in elite sport.

Jones' next contest will be at the EU Championships in Bulgaria later this month, and having won two silver medals at the event already the Scouser is tipped to strike gold this time.

But whatever she achieves over the next three years it will pale in comparison to what she may accomplish in London. If women's boxing gets the nod from the IOC, Jones can be a Team GB star in 2012. Remember the name.

That announcement is expected on 13 August at a meeting of the IOC's executive board in Berlin, although it is rumoured the call will be made a couple of weeks before. My guess is that it will be a hard decision to keep quiet so we may hear something sooner than the 13th.

What is more certain is that the International Boxing Association (AIBA), the sport's international governing body, has presented a compelling case.

Mindful of IOC concerns about the size of the Games, the AIBA has proposed giving up one of the 11 men's weight categories - the light flyweight class - to make room for five women's divisions of eight boxers each.

There were 286 boxers in Beijing but the AIBA is confident this number will not be exceeded in London even with the addition of 40 women. Expect tougher qualification criteria for the more popular men's divisions.

The other potential deal-breaker for the IOC was the overall medal count and the prospect of dishing out bronze medals to female boxers who win their first fight but then lose their second.

Boxing - like judo, taekwondo and wrestling - dishes out bronze medals to both beaten semi-finalists. This means 44 medals were awarded in Beijing, a number that would rise to 60 if five women's events are added to 10 men's events.

The AIBA has hinted it would bring in a third v fourth bout to keep the tally to 45 but it is no longer certain the IOC will insist upon this. The fact boxing's bosses were willing to put the extra bronze medal on the table was perhaps all the IOC needed to hear.

Rogge's feelings on the matter seem clear and women's boxing has already received public backing from Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell and private support from the organisers of the London Games.

As the only sport in the summer programme not to have a women's competition - and the IOC under pressure to address the unequal number of medals available to men and women - there is seemingly unstoppable momentum behind women's boxing.

I say seemingly because there is, of course, one enormous grey thing, with big floppy ears and a long trunk, clomping around the room and it's the same thick-skinned beast that came to the fore in Million Dollar Baby.

In that film - and it is just a film - Frankie's initial fears about women's boxing are proved correct when Maggie is left on life support after a particularly brutal (and ridiculously officiated) bout.

But acknowledging the elephant in the room is one thing, letting it knock the house down is another.

Amateur/Olympic boxing and its professional big brother are almost different sports. The head guards and heavy gloves the amateurs wear not only reduce the potential for harm, they also dictate different tactics - some pros dismiss amateur boxing as "fencing with gloves".

Points win prizes in the amateur game and those points are scored by punches to the head or midriff, not the chest, so scare stories about breast injuries for female boxers appear unfounded.

As do the more general scare stories about non-professional boxing. There has been plenty of research on the dangers of repeated blows to the head in professional boxing but it is very hard to find much of a case against amateur boxing (something Rogge, a surgeon by trade, will know well).

It is also difficult to maintain the line that boxing is inherently "unladylike". With the number of fighters seeking entry to the English championships up on last year by 50%, it seems ladies are making their own judgements about what is and what isn't behaviour befitting a lady these days.

I've already written that I thought women's boxing would get the nod for 2012. But it was just a guess then, based more on a suspicion that Olympic bosses would need a bargaining chip to get boxing to agree to a move from the Olympic Park to Wembley.

But having seen women box I can now say with certainty that the very best of them deserve to take their place alongside the very best cyclists, rowers and sailors.

After all, if judo, taekwondo, wrestling and, dare I say, dangerous sports like three-day eventing are OK, why not boxing?

Tyree Washington could have been an athletics superstar. He should have gold medals galore, world records, sponsorship deals and a healthy bank balance.

He should have, but he doesn't. And none of it is his fault.

Washington was a 400m runner with a rangy running style and a trademark headband around his shaved pate. As a 21-year-old he won bronze at the 1997 World Championships, anchored the US 4x400m team to gold and was part of the quartet that set a new world record the following year.

Both the relay medal and record have now been taken off him, scratched from the books after his team-mate Antonio Pettigrew admitted doping throughout the period.

Worse was to come. In 2003 he won silver at the Worlds in Paris behind Jerome Young and again took gold in the 4x400m. First the relay gold went, courtesy of team-mate Calvin Harrison's ban. Then the bombshell - his best mate Young had been doping too.

"They robbed me," he says simply. "Jerome took away my moment. He took away everything."

It was Young's duplicity that distressed Washington the most. The pair had roomed together on the European circuit for years, hung out, done all the things that best friends do.

"When Jerome won the world title, I was happy for him," Washington told me. "If it wasn't going to be me who won it, I wanted it to be him.

"That night, though, I looked into his eyes and I knew something was wrong. He didn't seem right to me. He wasn't at peace. I was his best friend - with anyone else, he could look at them and they wouldn't notice, but I'm Ty. I felt there was something wrong.

"When all the allegations came out, it made sense. He tested positive, and I was like, 'Hey J, what happened?' and he said, 'No Ty - it's not true - they're trying to set me up.' Then it happened the second time, and I was like, 'Oh man...'

"I wanted to believe him, but it happened so many times. And he was with Trevor Graham's group - these are people with athletes that have doped."

That Washington had made it to the start line in Paris was something of a miracle in itself. Brought up by his single mother, with his father in prison, he suffered from such acute asthma as a child that he spent long periods in hospital.

After his breakthrough year in 1997, his life lurched off the rails again two years later when his 18-month-old niece was murdered by her mother Rosalyn. Washington testified in court against his sister and saw her imprisoned for life - something he says "broke me apart" - but is now trying to support her as she battles a cancer so advanced that she is losing her sight.

In 2003 he was unbeaten both before and after the Worlds. Michael Johnson wrote in his BBC column that Washington could dominate the 400m for years to come. Then came Paris and Young's victory, followed by a succession of debilitating injuries. His track career would never again hit the same heights.

In February this year, Washington was finally upgraded to world champion in the IAAF's record books. When we speak, however, that's as far as it's gone. He's still waiting for his medal and his winner's cheque. The sponsorship money he would have received as world champ is almost certainly gone forever.

"I love athletics, but it feels like I'm being treated like the guy who did something wrong," he says. "They gave me the title six years later, and it really doesn't make up for it.

"My friends say that they should have a ceremony at this summer's Worlds in Berlin to give me my medal - it would only take two or three minutes. It's the least they could do, but they're not even doing that.

"I've lost millions of dollars in sponsorship. Not winning that gold that night - my sponsors backed out, because they don't want a second-place finisher. I didn't get the increase in my base salary for being a world champion. There's so much money that I lost and I can't get back."

Washington remains angry with both US Track and Field (USTAF) and the IAAF over what he perceives as a lack of sympathy and assistance. "There's the blood sweat and tears, the being in hospital for hours on end, and being away from my kid so I can make a living - but they just see me as a has-been. They hope I'll go away, and I'm appalled by it.

"I'm going to tell it like it is. I love my country, but the way they've treated me, I'm embarrassed to have run for the United States."

For their part, the governing bodies say their hands are tied. "It's not unique to Tyree, but it illustrates how athletes lose out when other athletes cheat," says USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer.

"If someone were to test positive at the 2007 Worlds, their prize money would be withheld until the test was completed, but here's a situation where the prize money has already been paid out.

"It's years down the road, and recovering money that no longer exists is frankly a problem. Going to Jerome to ask for the money - Jerome doesn't have £30,000. Getting blood from a stone is very difficult."

Neither the IAAF nor USATF have any jurisdiction over athletes who no longer compete. In effect, Young is out of reach.

"If Jerome had been banned for just one year and wanted to come back to compete, he would need to pay the money back to compete - and that's the carrot and stick used by the IAAF and us to get money repaid," says Geer.

"But in the case where the athlete doesn't want to compete again, and also doesn't have the means to pay, it gets very complicated. We don't have the legal leverage to get the money out. It's something that's very, very difficult to solve."

Washington, a passionate and engaging man, is angry not only for himself but at the damage done to athletics as a whole by the doping culture.

"When an athlete makes that decision, they're not just affecting themselves and seven other rivals," he says. "They're affecting families and friends, coaches and agents, the sporting world. There's a black cloud over the whole sport. People think athletics is a freak show, a contest about who can drug up the most.

"They start to think, Was Ty drugging? Was Marc [Raquil, 2003 world bronze medallist] drugging because he had that fantastic finish? I was clean, Marc was clean, everyone but one man was clean - but Jerome ruined it for all of us."

Washington is not the type of man to sit around feeling sorry for himself. While he continues to fight for the money and respect he feels he is owed, he has set up a campaign called Killeroids to warn high school students and young athletes how steroid abuse can ruin lives.

"I wanted to fight back, and I thought the best way to do it was to educate," he says. "This is my way of trying to build up the sport.

"Marion [Jones] and Justin [Gatlin] failed the sport. The world looks at track and field and thinks we have all failed. We're role models and teachers, and kids look up to us. If we make a wrong decision, it'll affect them all. I want to get a message out there that we are trying to kick the cheats out.

A week after Tyree and I first chat, and a few days after I ask USATF and the IAAF about his case, there is finally some good news.

Tyree hears from USATF that a new gold medal has been forged for him by the IAAF and sent on to the States. USATF also promise to present his medal at the national championships in Eugene at the end of June.

For Washington it is a bittersweet moment. On one hand he is delighted - he will at last receive the gold, six years after Young took it from him in Paris. On the other, he will never know the feeling of standing alone atop the podium at a World Championships.

The prize money, the sponsorship money, is not his. And, ultimately, the pain of betrayal by his best friend remains.

"This will help me and all athletes past and present," he says. "But as an athlete, I fought til the very end. I went out there full force for my country, so I'm going to do whatever I can to get justice.

"People say I'm bitter. I'm not bitter, Tom, I'm upset - but wouldn't you be upset if someone took four gold medals and a world record away from you?"

While they will not produce any binding decisions they could tell us a lot about the likely shape of the movement over the next decade, including the chances of a first British member of the IOC executive board since the 1950s.

The most crucial meeting is the one on Wednesday when the four cities bidding for the 2016 Games - Rio, Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid - make closed door presentations to IOC members at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

Their complaint is that the present system does not give them a chance to make a proper study of a city's merits.

They get a hefty evaluation report, which many confess they do not properly read, followed by a presentation by the cities just before the vote. There have been all sorts of suggestions for reviving visits including escorted visits with IOC minders to prevent any possible chance of bribery.

The meeting in Lausanne is a compromise suggested by President Jacques Rogge, providing members a chance to hear from the bidding cities, have more time to reflect on their decision, but all of it above board with no possible chance of any skulduggery.

The members will only decide on their choice of city when they meet in a formal session in Copenhagen in October.

By then members will have the evaluation reports. Prepared by an IOC committee led by Nawal El Moutawakel, the reports were recently finalised. They have not yet been released but I understand that while all four cities get high marks, Rio may have most cause for satisfaction.

Rio has a strong emotional case - the Games have never been to Latin America. But the worry is security and I understand the report is believed to be reassuring on this.

America has not had the Games since Atlanta in 1996 and, with Chicago being Barrack Obama's home city, the conventional wisdom has been that Obama has only to appear in Copenhagen in October, with or without Michelle, and it is game over.

The Obama factor can never be underestimated but Chicago has two problems. Like all US Olympics, Chicago will be privately funded at a time when governments all over the world are funding almost everything else.

There is also still a tide of anti-Americanism in the IOC. In 2005 when New York bid against London, this tide was fuelled by the Iraq war, now it is the top slicing of television and commercial income the US Olympic Committee gets before any money is distributed to the rest of the Olympic world. This has led to angry debates, many meetings, but no resolution.

While Madrid and Tokyo have good bids, their problem is their location rather than what they say they will do. Madrid would mean three successive Games in Europe following on from 2012 in London and 2014 in Sochi. Tokyo would mean a return to East Asia for the summer Games only eight years after Beijing.

The feeling at the moment is 2016 is going west, Rio or Chicago.

Before the cities make their presentations, the IOC Executive Board will hear the case by seven sports which want to be part of the 2016 Games - softball, baseball, golf, rugby sevens, karate, squash and roller skating.

The Executive will not come to a decision until a further meeting in August - then they will choose the two sports for the IOC session in Copenhagen to approve.

IOC chiefs would like to see major sports in the Olympics. Golf, rugby sevens and baseball meet that criterion but baseball's problem is getting major league players to take part in the Games.

The IOC has been worried for sometime that the Games no longer have the same appeal for the young and it is felt that sports like golf and rugby sevens would attract this audience.

With 90 of the 107 members likely to be in Lausanne, it gives Britain's Sir Craig Reedie a chance to lobby his colleagues as he seeks to get on the executive board. Olympic convention demands that a host city should have a representative on the executive.

Reedie just failed to get elected in Beijing but he is well liked and Lausanne should prove the start of a successful campaign.

But there are no guarantees this will happen across the country. I've been in the Calais region this week and the French are working very hard to attract teams too.

And why not? Calais is just an hour by train from central London and I visited excellent failicites for gymnastics, canoeing, basketball and handball. Dominique Dupilet, the head of the Pas-de Calais council, says he's already signed deals with around 10 teams already.

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And, listen to this! He told me that Calais will benefit more from London hosting the Games than if Paris had won.

This is because, he says, the French always look south when it comes to promoting cities. Calais would probably not have got a look-in if Paris had lived up to their pre-vote billing as favourites in 2005.

There's been a Union Jack in Dupilet's office since London won the vote and -- remarkably -- he says the region is pretty much an English region anyway.

There is no doubt that mainland Europe has the serious potential to snatch away some teams from the UK. Firstly, because there are excellent facilities in France and Germany which international teams have used before ahead of major events.

And, if you are travelling from the other side of the world, an extra hour or so's flight to London from Stuttgart or Brussels is hardly a problem.

Some teams may also fancy the idea of a quieter life away from Britain in the last few weeks before the Games when Olympic fever will be intense.

This isn't new, by the way. Just before the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, I went to visit the American athletics and swimming teams in their pre-Games training camps.

They were staying in Narbonne -- in France!