THE first recorded Olympics were in an era which we regard as primitive and barbaric. Combat sport was often to the death, yet honour and integrity flourished in 776BC.

Even anti-doping existed, though it was rudimentary. A wild boar was sacrificed to Zeus, and competitors swore, with hand placed on a slice of the raw meat, that training did not involve "magic": performance-enhancement through doping. Even officials were obliged to take the oath forswearing cheating.

Would that it were as simple today. Three millennia of progress has achieved no more than a simple oath. Doping is now endemic across all sport, an apparently uncontainable contagion. Which is why the European Athletic Association wants the world body to remove all world records set prior to 2005, and start with a clean slate.

This would strike out suspect - and proven - state-sponsored drug-fuelled marks of Russians and East Germans. However, it would also remove world records of Jonathan Edwards, Colin Jackson, and Paula Radcliffe, punishing the guilty and innocent indiscriminately, and inevitably stigmatising every athlete whose record is expunged.

This highlights the inadequacy and ineptitude of global anti-doping. We have long championed removal of proven cheats' records, but this EAA proposal is a legal minefield which I can't believe will be adopted by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Would their president, Seb Coe, endorse it so enthusiastically if he still held the world 800 metres record?

Several previous attempts to redraft records because of doping have failed, including two by Germany and one, 15 months ago, by Britain.

The most questionable marks date back to the 1980s, prime among them the 400m time of 47.60sec by East German Marita Koch, in 1985. One of 30 in her career, it is still the world best. Only one athlete has subsequently got within a second: Marie-Jose Perec (48.25) in winning 1996 Olympic gold.

In the past 25 years, 47.60 would have been good enough to win a Scottish championship men's 400m medal every year bar one. And it would have won the title eight times since 2000.

Koch never admitted to steroid use, but the former East Germany's doping programme details substances and even specific dosages. Among the documents is a letter from Koch to the head of the state-owned pharmaceutical company. She complained that a rival, Barbel Wockel, received bigger dosages of steroids because a relative worked for the company.

Bang to rights and knowingly complicit. Koch's record should be removed.

However, one can't airbrush history simply because a performance looks dodgy. The women's 800m mark (1:53.28) of Jarmila Kratochvilova is almost 34 years old. Indeed, most of the top times date from the drug-tainted '80s.

The Czech never tested positive, however, and at 66, maintains she is innocent of drug abuse. Documents proved the Communist party and government orchestrated a doping programme. But not a line implicates Kratochvilova.

She was indeed freakishly robust, even masculine-looking, but this proves nothing. Many of sport's great champions, male and female, have been "freakish".

Consider rugby's Jonah Lomu (1.95 metres, 235lb), German decathlete Jurgen Hingsen (2.00m), and cycling's Miguel Indurain (resting pulse of 28, double the average for a cyclist, and almost 25% greater lung capacity). None ever failed a drug test. And just because Chris Froome ascended Mont Ventoux faster than a proven peloton of cheats does not make him one too. Medical data revealed by Team Sky, seems to exonerate him.

I watched Mike Powell's iconic long jump battle with Carl Lewis in 1991 which ended Bob Beamon's reign. Powell will legally challenge any move to strike his record. "I’ve already contacted my attorney," the American told the BBC. "There are some records out there that are kind of questionable. I can see that, but mine is the real deal."

It's some 30 years since I suggested the Scottish 400m record, set in 1975 by David Jenkins, should be axed. Jailed in the US for trafficking steroids worth a reported $100m in 1988, he admitted to steroid use during his career. Yet his time of 44.93 is still the official Scottish best, taunting future generations. 

Scottishathletics disappointingly deemed the legal ground too shaky to strip him of that record, but caution may have been justified given the subsequent bankruptcy of British athletics by a doping law suit involving the innocent Diane Modahl.

Besides, it's a myth that sport is, or should be a level field. Jesse Owens jumped off grass in breaking the world long jump best in 1935. By 1968,  Beamon had an all-weather runway in Mexico where he posted a world mark which lasted 23 years (two less than that of Owens). When Powell beat Beamon's distance in 1991, the Tokio surface was non-granular, specially tailored for speed, and so hard that there were fears the IAAF might not validate the record.

Then there's shoe technology. Early today, on Monza race track, and led by Eliud Kipchoge, there was an attempt to break two hours for the marathon, using ultra-light shoes whose carbon fibre plates are claimed to give four percent performance improvement. If it does, two hours could be broken. Both shoes and course have been ruled legitimate, but 20 pacemakers, running 5000m and dropping in and out while shielding the athletes, will invalidate any record.

It's a shoe manufacturer's gimmick - on the 63rd anniversary of Bannister's four-minute mile - and underlines how future generations will always have an advantage.

It's the same across sport. Club and ball technology has made great golf courses redundant, with hazards now in the "wrong" place. It's no more possible to compare the skills of Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones with those of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy than it is to compare Tour de France winners Jacques Anquetil or Eddy Merckx with Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, given the latters' wind-tunnel developed bikes. And the late John Spencer, the three-times world snooker champion who died in 2005, said equipment had changed the game immeasurably since his era.

The number of androgynous women enjoying an unfair advantage further destroys the level playing field, and must be addressed.

Annulment of records would be mere window-dressing, protecting the image for sponsors and TV. Unless detection improves, cheating will persist. The new records will mean nothing, and the sport's history will have been destroyed on a whim.

Redrafting world bests on the grounds of suspicion alone is little better than swimming witches bound in a sack, drowning both guilty and innocent. And less effective than that 776BC oath.