The "Combatting Doping in Sport" report released by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) select committee delivered yet another severe blow to the reputation of elite sport.
The past few years have been devastating for sport globally, with the Russian doping scandal in particular obliterating all trust in the system.
There has, however, always been something of a sense within Britain that we are different from those cheats, and that we operate under a higher moral code than the Russians et al.
Yesterday’s report has put a stop to those kind of suggestions once and for all.
The reputations of some of the biggest names in British sport have been severely dented floowing this report's publication – and that’s the last thing that sport in this country needed at a time when public trust in it is at all all-time low.
The report’s assertion that Sir Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky "crossed an ethical line" by using drugs allowed under anti-doping rules to enhance performance instead of just for medical need is catastrophic for Team Sky and for Wiggins himself.
Team Sky was founded on the promise that they were different from the road cycling teams which systematically doped, which kept quiet about nefarious practices and which destroyed all trust in the sport.
Team Sky, it said, would win clean. They would focus on the benefits of marginal gains and prove that Grand Tour victories were possible without doping.
This report’s findings has, in one fell swoop, brushed all of those promises away. How can anyone believe a word that Team Sky supremo, Sir Dave Brailsford, says ever again? I know that I have no longer have even a shred of trust in him.
Sir Mo Farah, who has long been surrounded by allegations of doping, has not escaped unscathed either.
The DCMS committee said that was "shocked" that the four-time Olympic champion athlete received an injection of the legal supplement L-carnitine before the 2014 London Marathon that was not recorded on his medical records and while this is not incriminating in itself, it is the very last thing that Farah needed when there are many observers already suspicious of his conduct.
It remains to be seen what will come of this report’s findings. But what it should highlight to us all is that we are not immune from doping in Britain and we are certainly not immune from elite athletes pushing the boundaries.
The reputation of elite sport has taken a hammering in recent years. Will it ever recover? I fear not.
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