Athletics: Drummond's déjà vu

It would be entirely chauvinistic not to report the appaling déjà vu that came with the American sprinter John Drummond's defiance of his disqualification in the World Championship quarter-finals in Paris. The British hero Linford Christie didn't lay down on the track at the Atlanta Olympics after making two false starts in the 100 metres final, but he did bring appalling pressure to his opponents by causing a delay. Then he paraded in front of the crowd in a parody of a hero-champion's farewell while the remaining finalists sweated on the sound of the gun.

Track and field has been massively undermined by drug abuse. Nor does massive self-absorption help.