Cloud hangs over the Olympics

I'm thinking it's 'cos the last time we had a race like this was when that drug stallion Ben Johnson - looking like a man built from a kit of bowling balls - sped away to deliver the most notorious pee in sport - a sample so wicked even Fat Boy Slim wouldn't have touched it.

Since then there've been accusations over Lewis, too, and of course Christie, whose narkiness about not carrying the torch shows a real dimness over how failed tests can affect a man's reputation.

Marion Jones was forced to hand back almost as much gold as Bobby George has on his left hand after she revealed the truth and there was Kenteris and Thanou, Greece's worst ever motorcycle display team, who 'fell' off a bike and couldn't take a test (surely people can still pass water after a little accident like that).

Then there's Justin Gatlin who still insists he was taking drugs for Attention Deficit Disorder in which case there's going to be a hell of a lot of competitors in Beijing who find it hard to concentrate. And of course No-Brain-Dwain.

I bet Chambers wishes Keegan was in charge of the BOC. Kev'd give anyone a second chance, bless 'im, although strictly speaking Barton's on his third - I'm digressing here but can you think of any other profession in the country where a bloke who is guilty of assaulting a kid in town gets his job back when he comes out of jug - a job in which he has been known to assault colleagues?

Any road, given recent Olympic history, you can't help thinking that whoever wins the sprints is going to need a CAT scan to prove his innocence. Which is a shame.

We've already lost an entire squad of Bulgarian weightlifters but there's another event in which the chances of getting anywhere without chemical intervention must be slim.

There's a bodybuilder who comes in the Blue Bell from time to time. He's a short fella of course - well they always are, aren't they? Trying to make up in width what they lack in height (think bald blokes with pony-tails). Any road this sock of marbles dyes his hair green, he's got fake tan everywhere, his skin's not too clever... I swear he looks for all the world like a half-ripe strawberry.

Now he'll tell you it's all macrobiotics this and supplements that which led to to him looking - well, like a freak - but I don't believe him.

And of course some people will have the same suspicions about any Olympic champion whether that's fair or not.

The thing about Mental Ben in '88 was that it was still a magnificent spectacle. Johnson wasn't the brightest penny in the box but he was still a man - some people seem to bang on like he was genetically-modified or summat.

Now of course the sport has rules and the bloke was cheating. And cheating better than Chambers by all accounts, who took all that gunk and still only came third!

But surely there is a case for having an alternative Olympics. If you want to do everything by the book then fair enough but if you want to be able to clean and jerk (a phrase which I can't help thinking is the wrong way round) a Luton van above your head, while fuelled with testosterone, you could compete in the Dirty Games.

At the heart of this all is the unfortunate truth that there are tons of precious metals that have been dangled around the necks of preposterously-muscled athletes and gymnasts and swimmers.

God knows how many Eastern European women we saw challenging the boundaries of gender in the seventies and eighties. I bet they were a nightmare to live with, eh? Never asking for directions, leaving their running pants on the floor, always leaving the seat up... and it's too late to take their medals back.

Still, I'm sure when it comes down to it I'll swallow my cynicism and I'll be urging on all our competitors to victory - that's several cyclists, a couple of sailors, probably some rowers and Phillips Idowu.

And if the only dope in the UK squad* is the one in the 4x100 relay who drops the baton, then at least we can say we lost it clean.

*Incidentally, I will never, ever buy in to the sickeningly Yankee Doodle phrase that is 'Team GB'. It makes us sound like a drippy girls' hockey team or something. Actually it's the worst thing I've heard in sport since Steve McClaren said 'Stevie G'. Stop it.