Athletics - Mike Rowbottom: Germany provides the ideal setting for the Unfriendly Games

He was standing by the bus stop at the back of the Olympic Stadium, still faintly flushed from his efforts after being obliged to re-run his 200 metres heat on an otherwise empty track. It was not Paul Brizzel's fault that he had nearly been decapitated at the start of his opening race by a rogue television camera on a trackside boom.

"I could have ended up in intensive care,'' he said. "Or worse. I could have broken the camera.''

"Yeah, those cameras are expensive things,'' someone added.

Laughter. It has been scarce at the European Athletics Championships this last week. Just as well they do not have to live up to a name like the Friendly Games.

Much of the ill feeling here has swirled around a runner who, if athletics were the Girl Guides, would have an armful of badges and a position of special responsibility on trips.

At least one foreign paper, France's Liberation, carried an article casting doubt upon the legitimacy of Paula Radcliffe's performance in removing nearly 30 seconds from her best 10,000 metres time on Tuesday night. Anecdotal evidence suggested this view was shared by others in the French, Portuguese and Spanish press.

Later in the week, as a means of demonstrating her commitment to doping control, Radcliffe released details of the blood and urine tests she has undergone since the beginning of what has turned out to be the year of her athletics life.

Radcliffe may never be a glamour girl, but she seems to be growing more radiant by the week. It looks like pure happiness. What a pity that she should have to spend time justifying herself.

That is the way of the sport right now. The spike was on the other foot on Thursday night when Britain's Kelly Holmes implied that the Slovenian who had beaten her to the 800m gold, Jolanda Ceplak, was taking drugs.

Where exactly do we stand on thin blondes who go straight to the front of their races and destroy all opposition without a flicker of doubt?

Radcliffe was the target of much rumbling and grumbling towards the end of this week, notably from the Spanish and Irish quarters, as the organisers deliberated over the staging of heats for the women's 5000m. When the heat was scrapped at short notice on Thursday morning, the Irish and Spanish protested, pointing out that, under the International Association of Athletics Federations rule 166.2, fields of more than 20 require preliminary races.

"We feel that there are other elements involved,'' said the Irish team manager, Patsy McGonagle, darkly as Guinness. The inference was that Paula's people had somehow brought pressure to bear to prevent her having to run an extra round, thereby making it more likely that she would attempt to earn a second gold medal before concluding her track season.

Meanwhile, non-Irish elements were muttering equally darkly about trouble being created so that Ireland's defending champion, Sonia O'Sullivan, whom Radcliffe beat by two-thirds of a lap in the 10,000m, would have the chance to run some of the energy out of her British opponent before the main race. "Sonia doesn't want a straight final,'' One observer remarked. "Because she knows she'd get beaten by Paula.''

Paula then cut the Gordian knot by announcing that she would not, after all, run again because she wanted to concentrate on her preparation for the Chicago Marathon. But there was still room for other conspiracy theories to be run up the flagpole. The men's 200m heats – why was it that the Brits were all drawn in the undesirable outside lane, while the German athletes got the cushy numbers? Eh?

Then again, other voices cut in, what about the home-town decisions at the Manchester Commonwealth Games when Darren Campbell got the 200m bronze and the English 400m relay team the gold medal after finishing level with opponents credited with the same time? Why had those decisive measures in thousandths of a second not been publicised? Eh? Eh?

And what about the photographers' positions? Stuck there on the infield right next to the TV interviewers, with all the sport lights creating a bloody heat haze? Impossible.

And no extended start lists at the stadium. Which meant a bloody hike down to the Olympic Hall with its dingy interiors and awful salami rolls...

High above the Olympic Stadium there is a Zeppelin carrying a television camera which offers overhead views. What would it be like to swing that camera away from the hubbub below – making sure not to endanger anyone in so doing – and zoom to the flats standing on the other side of the Mittlerer Ring? Focus on one particular flat. Remember the figure with the gun and the stocking over his face, making his brief, blank appearance on the balcony during the Munich Olympics.

Then return over 30 years and be ready, perhaps, to laugh.