Dan Jones: The problem for Mo Farah is that whatever the outcome from this point, it is not good for him

Draining: Mo Farah's outrage, irritation and exasperation have been clear to all since the controversy broke

GETTY

11 June 2015

How many times have you read this phrase this week? “There is no suggestion that Mo Farah has been involved in doping.”

It has been dutifully tacked on to every mention of the allegations — boldly made and robustly denied — that Farah’s coach Alberto Salazar has doped other of his athletes over the years.

It is an accurate phrase and it is important — not least for legal reasons — that we keep repeating it.

But it is also extremely depressing: an acknowledgement that Britain’s finest and best-loved track athlete has been sucked, apparently unwittingly, into yet another track-and-field doping controversy. The world really is a miserable place sometimes.

Farah’s outrage, irritation and exasperation were all absolutely clear when he spoke to the press this week about his decision to travel back to Portland, Oregon, and confer with — or, indeed, confront — Salazar about the allegations against him. “My name is getting dragged through the mud and it’s not fair,” Farah said. “I want answers.”

He looked genuinely agitated — brusque and antsy, a man whose world has been set alight, and not in a good way.

The problem for Farah is that whatever the outcome from this point, it is not good for him.

If Salazar cannot clear his name, then the options lie somewhere between catastrophic (Farah ends up being implicated too) to the merely s****y (Farah is forced to sever ties with the coach who has turned him into a champion and a global star.)

Worse than that, in a cosmic sense, is the fact that even if Salazar does clear his name, and no evidence ever emerges to cast legitimate suspicion on Farah, both will nevertheless now forever be muttered about.

Another gold medal?

Up will start pub bores all over the country: “Yeah, but…”

Yes, that would be unjust, unfounded, regrettable and wrong. But in a sport with as fragile a reputation as athletics, it would be naive to imagine anything else.

In that sense, “there is no suggestion that Mo Farah has been involved in doping” is the most inadequate statement of the year. Because here’s the big problem: there is not a shred of evidence implicating Farah in any wrongdoing and yet some people are now sitting here suspecting him anyway.

What a dreadful mess it is.

Speaking — as is his wont — for athletics as a whole, Sebastian Coe has called doping “the war we cannot lose”. He is wrong. It is the war we cannot win. Just as happened in the other, more famous, “war on drugs”, fighting has had the paradoxical effect of making things worse.

On the one hand, increasingly sophisticated methods of detection and hyper-vigilance by the sport’s dope police bring more frequent positive tests for doping.

Simultaneously, more stringent policing has produced more devious cheats. The net effect has been to produce a sport in which many are presumed to be to guilty, and even the thinnest suggestion of wrongdoing can ruin a personal reputation for good.Perhaps this is what athletics deserves. Certainly, doping has been a part of athletics for my whole lifetime: I cannot imagine the sport without it.

For any sport to have endured the terrible press and repeated disappointments of generation after generation of doping scandals, and still to produce cheats? Well, that suggests a level of incorrigible, culturally embedded corruption of the sort that no amount of policing or breast-beating will ever eradicate.

Hopefully that is not the case, although it is difficult to believe anything else right now. UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner has said that the allegations against Salazar could dog Farah for years. There is no suggestion that… well, you know all that already.

But it’s not just Farah who might be dragged down by this latest round of dope claims. The whole thing represents another unsavoury stain on the browned and greasy bedsheet of athletics as a whole.

It is often said that it would be better if they scrapped the rules, binned the ethics and we had a full-on Dope-lympics. That’s a bleak joke, rather than a sensible policy. All the same, it’s hard to be much more constructive at moments like these.

Idiotic? It’s just a cheeky ride

PA/Reuters

Sir Bradley Wiggins setting a world record for The Hour dominated cycling news this week. Another story went widely unreported: in Cardiff an 8.5 mile naked bike ride raised awareness for cycling safety but also offended the surprisingly prissy locals. One punter said: “Everyone arguing that it’s right to let children see naked bodies and quoting that when we were devolved everyone was naked is just idiotic.” Hmm. I suppose it’s a new take on Welsh nationalist politics, anyway.

Twickenham is a bit sniffy

Potential winners or not, no one is expecting England to stink out the Rugby World Cup this autumn. But maybe that’ll be out of their hands. As reported in the Standard this week, local MP Ruth Cadbury has pointed out that the sewage works at Mogden are leaking — and since they’re virtually next door to Twickenham, there’s a real risk that the ripe stench of raw human waste will be drifting across the pitch during the tournament. HQ? I propose renaming it H-Poo. Best to upfront about these things.

Rugby World Cup 2015: England's opponents

1/4

Boris curses microphones

England win mind games

There’s a long way to go for England’s one-day side but they could not have begun the new era any more impressively than they did on Tuesday at Edgbaston by lathering 409 before bowling out New Zealand in 31.1 overs for a truly thumping, record-breaking victory: their biggest ever win. No doubt there will be good and bad days ahead. But England have at least shown that they can play modern 50-over cricket when they put their minds to it. What a marvellous thing.