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Listed below are comments made by twinspeed between Monday, 14th July 2008 and Wednesday, 20th August 2008.

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A tactical masterpiece 6:37pm on 20 Aug 2008 As someone who actually does know Christine, I am absolutely delighted for her. Her run is one of the highlights of the track and field competition for me (still behind Usain Bolt though!!)

Having been involved (as both athlete and coach) in British athletics for a while, I can honestly say that Christine is one of the most naturally gifted athletes I have ever met. There are certain athletes (and not as many as you would believe) who have a God-given gift for their discipline. She also has the mental and emotional faculties that are necessary to be a champion - and those are to be applauded. History is littered with athletes of supreme ability who never made Olympic champion (Asafa Powell, Leroy Burrell, Merlene Ottey, to name but a few).

She is (whatever the nay-sayers might say) also a fantastic person - and it's not often you can say that about someone so successful.

Some of the negative comments on this blog are expected (even Michael Johnson said that for the rest of her career, she may have to carry the weight of her mistake with her); some are vaguely hypocritical - is there anyone out there who hasn't turned up to work hungover, or late for a meeting, or just made a professional error? Yes - I suspect most of us have, even though we may depend on our work for our livelihood. It amounts to much the same thing. A few of the comments on this blog have bordered on the ignorant and just plain stupid, and should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

However, I would urge Christine to continue to have faith in her own ability and to pray for the superhuman grace she will need to answer the repetitive, inane questions she will encounter from the press - without becoming sullen and angry. Goodness knows I couldn't do it.

Well done, Christine - Olympic Champion.
Rutherford's heroics and the 100m showdown 4:15pm on 14 Jul 2008 This whole affair is just so wrong on so many levels, it's difficult to know where to start. But here goes:

1) UKA and the BBC are both culpable of an extraordinary level of bias. The same fuss was not made of Janine Whitlock (British record holder in the Pole Vault) when she tested positive for steroids. Nor was the same fuss made of Carl Myerscough when he won the shot putt this weekend. He has been allowed to get on with his career without any fuss, despite testing positive for steroids in 1999. If the BBC and UKA have any decency about them, they should ensure that all athletes that have failed drugs tests are treated equally for the same transgression.

2) UKA failed in its duty of care to Dwain back in 2001 when he first went to the USA. Here was a funded GB athlete, at the age of 22, who goes off to the US to train with a group of American athletes, and nobody in UKA thought it necessary to check it out? It's not like it was a collegiate set up, where you expect the athletes' welfare to be looked after. If this was an equivalent in private sector employment, someone would have lost their job. UKA's lax attitude to the welfare of its athletes is, at best, negligent.

3) Surely the fact that Dwain felt it necessary to go to the States in the first place is a damning indictment on the state of coaching in this country? Anyone in the sport knows that UKA's attitude to its coaches is a disgrace.

4) An athlete who is effectively out of the sport for 3-4 years (as in Dwain's case) has no business coming back to the top of the sport. Surely if UKA had been doing its job properly we would have a number of young sprinters (not just Simeon Williamson) at a decent level. 10.1/10.2 is just not good enough - which is why we haven't had a sprinter in a World or Olympic final for 5 years. Try running 10.00 in the US trials? You wouldn't make the final.

5) Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the BOA byelaw, Jonathan Edwards was spot on when he said that the problem was that two years is too short a time for a drugs ban. Make it 8 or 10 years (or more) and you won't have this problem. UKA and the BBC (and all those retired athletes that they bring out to comment) should be lobbying WADA to make this penalty a strong one.

6) UKA and the BBC's hand-wringing and self-flagellation on this topic is shameful. It is this, rather than Dwain Chambers or Carl Myerscough's actions which continue to make a mockery of the sport. These bodies are trying so hard to appear to be doing the right thing that they are making anyone connected with the sport look foolish by washing its dirty linen in public. If we want to have a clean sport, and one that we are all proud to be associated with, lets do something positive - have sensible, legal, strong INTERNATIONAL drug enforcement policies to bring back the integrity to our sport. Let's take more of an interest in our athletes and coaches welfare, and of all those who give their time up for nothing to make GB athletics successful.

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