Grim future for UK sport

Only two months ago Sports Minister Richard Caborn flew to Canada on a mission to reassure world athletics officials that Tony Blair's pledge to host the World Championships in London in 2005 was firmly on track.

Sitting in the sun-drenched stands of Edmonton's Commonwealth Stadium, the venue for this year's championships, Mr Caborn promised IAAF president Lamine Diack that London would put on an even better show.

Today Caborn and his boss, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, will meet Mr Diack again after plans for a new 43,000-seater athletics stadium to host the 2005 championships at Picketts Lock, Edmonton, were scrapped. The project, at a cost of at least £100million, was considered too expensive. A Government report concluded problems over transport infrastructure, running costs and athletes' accommodation made Picketts Lock too risky.

The pair will try to persuade Mr Diack today that the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield is a viable alternative. It is almost certain they will be turned down. The IAAF has already stated that if London is not to be the venue for the next championships it will re-open the bidding process.

While the decision to shelve Picketts Lock will surprise no one who has followed its progress for the past two years, it remains a massive embarrassment for the Government and British sport. Coming on the back of last year's failed £10 million bid for the World Cup, it will take years for British sport's reputation to recover.

Although the British Olympic Association says its work on a possible London bid for the 2012 Olympics will continue, those plans must also be facing the shredder. A projected space age stadium alongside state-of-the-art indoor facilities on land owned by Lee Valley Regional Park Authority always seemed far fetched.