London kept its side of athletics legacy bargain, now IAAF must award capital the World Championships

Not again: Lord Coe will be praying for no repeat of the jubilation when Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup (Photo: AFP)

I am trying to picture the headlines next week if Doha is chosen ahead of London to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships. It doesn’t make pretty reading.

If anything, the humiliation would be even greater than England’s last-place finish in the 2018 World Cup vote because London is so obviously a more suitable candidate than its rival, with its furnace-like temperatures and crowds so sparse that they have to bus in migrant workers for Diamond League meetings and then lock the

stadium doors to stop them leaving early.

One can only imagine the backlash. It would be seen as a snub of epic proportions, and it would certainly re-open the debate over whether a permanent running track in the Olympic Stadium can really be justified.

If the International Association of Athletics Federations couldn't care less about cementing Britain’s athletics legacy, then why should we spend tax-payers’ money keeping the Olympic Stadium in public ownership just to guarantee the future of the running track?

The clamour to tear up the track would be deafening, while the personal criticism of Lord Coe for his insistence on a permanent athletics legacy would also grow louder. And all this at a time when Britain was supposed to be getting ready for a gigantic celebration of Olympic sport, with athletics at its centre.

Such a scenario is why the IAAF council members must do the right thing next week and vote for London. It is surely payback time for the efforts of Coe, and indeed the Government, in sticking so firmly to London’s promise to retain an athletics legacy for the Olympic Stadium.

That promise was made to the International Olympic Committee in Singapore in 2005 and was a key factor in London’s success in securing the 2012 Games. It is widely believed that Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, switched his vote from Paris to London because of that undertaking.

Diack certainly did not forget London’s promise earlier this year when the Olympic Park Legacy Company were weighing whether to allow Tottenham to tear up the track and rebuild the stadium as a football-only venue.

In fact, his outrage at such a prospect could not have been plainer as he talked of “betrayal” and “a big lie” if the track was removed.

It is worth recalling the statement he released in support of a permanent running track. He wrote:

The crux of the stadium debate for the IAAF focuses on the commitment given by the London bid committee in Singapore in 2005 to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has many members from the sport of athletics, to retain a sustainable athletics legacy after the London Games.

This promise was not a footnote of London’s bid: it was a core  policy of their presentation to convince the Olympic family of their exciting, viable legacy plans. It offered a vision of year-round health and fitness opportunities for the local community and a venue to stage national and major international athletics competitions ranging from meetings like the Samsung Diamond League to Area and World Championships.

So there it is. In reminding us of London’s promise, Diack also acknowledged the city’s vision of a vibrant athletics legacy with major international meetings, including the World Championships, being staged in the stadium.

That is the vision that Coe has held on to ever since London was awarded the Olympics, despite the pressures to water down the promise made in Singapore.

London has kept its side of the bargain. Now it is up to the IAAF to deliver.

World Athletics Championships: the Curse of the Olympic Gold Medal

Shock: the curse of the Olympic Gold Medal struck Christine Ohuruogu (Photo: GETTY IMAGES)

So the ‘Curse of the Cover’ has finally been broken after Russian Olympic champion Olga Kaniskina won the women’s 20km race walk on Wednesday despite being pictured on the front cover of the daily programme at the World Athletics Championships in Daegu.

The previous day, newspapers and television stations had been abuzz after Russian pole-vault great Yelena Isinbayeva became the fourth athlete to bomb out of the Championships after appearing on the front cover.

First it was Australian pole-vaulter Steve Hooker, who failed to make it through the men’s pole vault qualifying round, followed by Usain Bolt, red-carded on the second day for a false start, and Dayron Robles, who was stripped off his gold on the third day for man-handling an opponent mid-race.

It is the kind of silly-season story that is so beloved by media outlets (remember Paul, the result-predicting Octopus, at the football World Cup in South Africa?) but the coincidence of under performing cover stars has a more interesting explanation.

All four of the affected athletes were Olympic champions in Beijing three years ago, which is clearly the required qualification for being given cover-picture status, and all four are part of a far

bigger trend in South Korea that would be better described as the Curse of the Olympic Gold Medal.

So far, the World Championships have been a graveyard for Olympic winners. After Hooker’s surprise departure on the opening morning, Britain’s only defending Olympic champion, Christine Ohuruogu, became the next high-profile casualty without even getting the chance to run in her 400m heat.

Since then the stream of Olympic medallists heading for the exit door has turned into a flood.

The statistics are extraordinary. Of the 17 Olympic champions from 2008 who have competed on the opening five days, just three of them have won gold in Daegu.

Step forward Kaniskina and the two ‘Valeries’ – New Zealander Valerie Vili, winner of the women’s shot put, and Russian Valery Borchin, who triumphed in the men’s 20km race walk.

The other 14 have all failed to add to their gold medal collections, some through freak circumstances (Ohuruogu, Bolt and Robles), some because of their injury histories (Hooker, Keninisa

Bekele) and others because they were simply not good enough (Isinbayeva, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Nancy Jebet Lagat, Natalyia Dobrynska).

For the record, the other fallen heroes are Maurren Higa Maggi (Brazil, long jump), LaShawn Merritt (US, 400m), Stephanie Brown Trafton (US, long jump), Primoz Kozmus (Slovenia, hammer) and Gerd Kanter (Estonia, discus).

What is happening has nothing to do with programme covers but is nothing more than a changing of the guard – proof that success in athletics is temporary and that, with just 11 months remaining until the London Olympics, the intensity of competition is cranking up.

Before the championships, UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee drew a distinction between winning a track and field gold medal and triumphing in the Star class in sailing or in archery.

The struggles of the British team so far reinforces his point that medals in athletics are fiendishly difficult to win. Of all the Olympic sports, track and field is the most global. Even Botswana has been celebrating its first ever world gold medal this week.

This is not to make excuses for Britain’s disappointments in Daegu. As recipients of £25 million of Lottery funding over the current Olympic cycle, UK Athletics are rightly expected to deliver at the highest level.

But a measure of realism is also required. If 14 out of 17 Olympic champions have found the going tough, then Britain’s athletes need to be cut a bit of slack.

And besides, the team still have plenty of medal opportunities to come, beginning with a chance of gold for hurdler Dai Greene on Thursday.

The Olympic champion, American Angelo Taylor, is also in the final line-up. And quite possibly on the programme cover, too.

World Athletics Championships: the curse of the programme

Daily disqualification: Usain Bolt and Dayron Robles have both been hit by the curse of the IAAF programme

When the victorious Dayron Robles faced a protest about his World Championships win in the 110m hurdles, he had no further to look than that day’s IAAF souvenir programme cover for a sign of the outcome.

There he was in full colour effortlessly clearing the hurdles. But it was the curse of the magazine cover than did him in. Day one IAAF poster boy Australian Olympic pole vault champion Stephen Hooker failed to make the final and day two’s, Usain Bolt, didn’t get beyond the start line of the 100m final when he false started. It has become a running joke in Daegu that to be honoured on the cover is bad luck. So of course it was no surprise to the superstitious that Robles, from Cuba, lost his hurdles title, disqualified in the protest room because he had hit the arm of his neighbouring hurdler, China’s Liu Xiang. So who will be on the magazine title page next? Or will more than a few athletes be running for cover?

Let the games begin…in the debate over Oscar Pistorius selection against able-bodied

Let the debate begin… and they will now, hard and fast, as Oscar Pistorius has been officially selected to compete for South Africa at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, Korea. Two events 4 x 400m and 400m. It is a precursor to his selection for the Olympic Games.

It will divide opinion, and has created a platform for searing irony. The man born with no bones in his lower legs is going to be cited by many as having an advantage. He’s unique. He’s human. He’s ultra-competitive. He’s put the time in. Let him run…

Pistorius said yesterday: “I am thrilled to have been announced on the South African team today to compete at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu in the 400m and 4×400m relay. I have dreamt for such a long time of competing in a major Championships and this is a very proud moment in my life. It is an honour to be representing my country at such a prestigious event and I hope to do my best at the competition for South Africa. I am training hard in preparation for the event and I am looking forward to the Championships immensely.”

“The IAAF is a world-class governing body for our sport and I am grateful to have the chance to run in their events. It will be a great day for me when I set out on the track in Daegu and I hope to do my country proud. This will be the highest-profile and most prestigious able-bodied event which I have ever competed in and I will face the highest-calibre of athletes from across the planet. If I manage to make it through the heats, I would be thrilled. A good performance for me would be to be consistent through the heats. If I ran anywhere close to my PB, I would be delighted.”