Susan Egelstaff, the Scot who is Great Britain's leading women's singles badminton player, was drawn into the sports debate on the back of the "gauleiter" furore triggered last week after Alex Salmond was jocked off BBC coverage of the Calcutta Cup match.

"I don't think it is ideal when politics and sport mix," she told BBC Sport Nation. Commonwealth singles bronze medallist in 2006, and contender for a London Olympics place, Egelstaff acknowledges the inevitability of them mixing, but wishes this could be limited. "Everyone jumps on the bandwagon if sport is going well, and politicians are no different," she said.

Yet separation of sport and politics is a utopian concept long at odds with reality. In the ninth century BC, three leaders of city states signed a treaty proclaiming an "ekecheiria" or "truce" which allowed athletes, artists, and their supporters, to travel safely to and from the Olympics.

It's a romantic image of the nobility of sport from an era when conflict routinely engulfed what is now Greece. The paradox is that this was a political agreement struck in an attempt to keep politics and sport apart.

During some 3000 years since, it has proved impossible for sport and politics to exist separately.

From the bread and circuses of ancient Rome – a device to keep the masses happy – to football stadia in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and North Korea used as execution grounds, the volatile mix of sport and politics has persisted with obscene consequences.

Black September guerillas, attempting to make a political statement about Palestine, hijacked the Olympics in 1972, murdering 11 Israeli athletes. Others argue they were freedom fighters.

The counterpoint to that evil was that sport was used as a most effective weapon to bring down apartheid. South African-born Basil D'Oliveira was left out of the England side to tour the republic in 1968 because it had been made clear to selectors that he would be unwelcome. South Africa was exposed as a racist state, and the tour was cancelled.

More than two decades of sporting isolation followed, biting particularly hard on rugby and cricket. After the release of Nelson Mandela and the end of apartheid, the country returned to normal sport relations in 1991. Arguably the greatest example of sport influencing politics for good.

Yet while debate over racial segregation rumbled on, Scotland became collateral damage in the conflict. Zola Budd ran at Meadowbank in 1985. A slogan on the scoreboard read: "Edinburgh Against Apartheid". TV refused to screen the meeting and athletics in the Scottish capital was put off limits, helping Glasgow become the focus of the sport in Scotland which continues more than quarter of a century on.

The 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh fell victim to a catastrophic boycott because of apartheid. Previous Olympics, in Montreal, Moscow, and Los Angeles had all been similarly blighted –apartheid, the Soviet presence in Afghanistan, and tit-for-tat respective causes. And all politically motivated.

Jesse Owens was adopted as a icon after his Olympic haul of four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It was unwitting. He neither set out to be a champion of campaigns against US segregation laws, nor of anti-Nazi sentiments. That he achieved that status merely underlines the shotgun marriage which sport and politics seems unable to resist. The reality is that they are always linked, and often wholly self-serving.

Egelstaff correctly identified that the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow runs the risk of being hijacked by politicians. They rival the reactions of Usain Bolt out of the blocks when a photo opportunity is at stake, and you can bet there will be a similar unseemly stampede around the Olympics.

Is the Beeb really so naive as to believe sport and politics don't mix? Or are more sinister forces at work? Some suspect a preference for the establishment.

It was okay for John Major, when Tory Prime Minister, to comment on cricket issues for the BBC's Test Match Special. This week, Prime Minister David Cameron was free to give his views to the Beeb regarding the resignation of England football manager Fabio Capello. Welsh ministers have been free to broadcast on sporting issues such as the Ryder Cup. Yet Ric Bailey, the BBC chief political adviser could not bring himself to allow Salmond on air, despite reassurances that he would not use the Murrayfield platform to score political points.

The reality is that sport pervades every aspect of political life, even football allegiances. Salmond is a well-known Hearts fan, while Gordon Brown is an avowed Raith Rovers supporter. Would they have nailed their colours so publicly to the uprights had they supported either half of the Old Firm? You bet not, for fear of alienating a chunk of the electorate.

Sport has played fair for too long in the face of cynical opportunist politicians. It had the ability to end apartheid. It's overdue using it's muscle to bring politicians on side.

doug gillon