World Athletics Championships: Can Mr Clean Usain Bolt and the Brit pack lift the gloom over Moscow

A hatful of golds for Bolt will prove a point to the drugs cheats but victories could be in short supply for Team GB
9 August 2013

It is often said that no man is bigger than his sport — but when it comes to the fastest man on the planet, there could be a valid argument to say otherwise.

There is more to the World Athletics Championships than Usain Bolt but the Jamaican is undoubtedly the major draw and athletics needs him to fire perhaps more than ever before.

A shadow looms large over Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium where Bolt will get his quest under way tomorrow for the first of three possible gold medals.

It is a championship notable for its absentees, with other London 2012 stars like David Rudisha and Jessica Ennis-Hill both forced to watch on television nursing respective knee and Achilles injuries.

But there are murkier names forced to play truant from the championships because of doping irregularities.

The two biggest are Tyson Gay, the quickest man over 100m this season with a run of 9.75 seconds, and also Bolt’s close friend, Asafa Powell.

Those are merely the tip of the iceberg, Powell is one of six Jamaicans to fail tests this year, while Turkey has just had 31 athletes banned for two years, not to mention hosts Russia, who currently have 40 track-and-field athletes not eligible for competition.

It means the pressure is on Bolt to succeed . . . and to succeed clean.

To his credit, he has not shirked from the subject of doping, discussing it in detail ahead of the Sainsbury’s Anniversary Games.

Pressed on the subject once again this week, Bolt, who was one of 44 Jamaicans blood tested on Tuesday, said: “I’ve broken every record in every one of my events for over 10 years.

“All I can do is keep working hard and running fast to help the sport. I’m ready to work hard and make all the sacrifices of a clean athlete.”

He will no doubt step up to play the role of showman. He has done so in the build-up with aplomb, a video airing of him listening to Russian audio tapes supposedly to get used to the local lingo in training.

For him, though, Moscow is a mere stepping stone to the legendary status he so publicly craves and has already, in part, achieved by defending all three Olympic sprint titles in London. Now, though, he has set his sights on being mentioned in the same company as Muhammad Ali and Pele. It is hard to see past Bolt being the major talking point here unless more chapters in the doping saga are written in Russia.

Defending champion Dai Greene is part of the unknown factor in the British contingent, battling to recover from a calf tear picked up in the trials. Where in Daegu two years ago he was very clear it was gold or nothing, now he is not setting any targets, such is the unknown over his hamstring.

Olympic champion Greg Rutherford has been rather more positive in his own fitness battle from a hamstring injury but, even then, he is without the fluency of back-to-back competitions so often a prerequisite of the field events in particular. It leaves Mo Farah as the one fully fit British Olympic champion from 2012 and while it would be wrong to talk of a banker for gold in events as unpredictable as the 10,000m and 5,000m, he is as close as you can get to being one.

A world-class field of mostly Kenyan, Ethiopian and Ugandan runners may try to assert a quick tempo in an effort to upset his rhythm and thus diffuse his ability to run an astonishing 50-second final lap. In truth, that seems the only way the Londoner will be knocked off his perch as the world’s best distance runner.

Britain’s next best bet for gold is Christine Ohuruogu, in the pre-championship form of her life but with the notable obstacle of Botswana’s Amantle Montsho, in particular, to overcome in the 400m. Ohuruogu is renowned as a championship performer, seemingly able to switch it on when it matters, her false start and disqualification in Daegu in 2011 aside.

Trying to explain that, she said: “I really wish I could tell you why but I really don’t know.”

UK Athletics have opted not to follow former head coach Charles van Commenee’s approach of making public predictions but, even with injuries, they will aspire to emulate the six medals from the Olympics. Perri Shakes-Drayton is a gold-medal contender in the 400m hurdles while James Dasaolu could aspire to a medal if able to back up his 9.91sec at the trials. However, his previously frail body needs to hold up to the rounds.

The one unknown from a British perspective is in the relays. Of the four line-ups, the best medal protagonists are the women’s 4x400m quartet and the men’s 4x100m team, although their propensity for fumbled changeovers makes them far from a dead cert.

It is 33 years ago that Britain left the same Luzhniki Stadium with four Olympic gold medals courtesy of Allan Wells, Steve Ovett, Seb Coe and Daley Thompson.

Matching that achievement, while not uthinkable, would be an almighty feat.

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