Inside Lines: Jowell's jewel haunted by a Howell of anguish

Dateline: Birmingham The late and much lamented Denis Howell, first and foremost of the sausage machine of sports ministers, would have been chuffed at the smooth manner in which his native city has orchestrated the World Indoor Athletics Championships. Brum has done him proud – the nation, too. Seven months on from the acclaimed Commonwealth Games, the event has shown what British sport can do. The irony is that the two cities which made unsuccessful bids for the Olympics could end up cementing London's bid. Pity the PM, originally due to present medals here today, is now otherwise engaged, for his spinners surely would have wanted him to put the seal on a superbly hosted championships by finally announcing that London will go for 2012. No such move is likely until the Gulf conflict is over, but the upbeat mood of the present sports minister, Richard Caborn, suggests the omens are good. He has been doing here what he does best, working receptions and glad- handing the dignitaries. His boss, Tessa Jowell, arrives today to host a lunch intended to repair the rift with the IAAF over the loss of the outdoor World Championships. Doubtless she will be talking excitedly about her latest gameplan. She has secured Government backing to subsidise sports scholarships here and overseas for "the young and gifted". It is inspired by the fact her son Mark, 21 and a golfing prodigy, is on a privately funded scholarship in the USA. However, there are concerns that the scheme could cut across the one operated by the Sports Aid Foundation which Lord Howell helped set up. In the parlance of a Brum-based sports celeb, "would he not like that".

Absentee Carter heads for the hills

Olympic chief Jacques Rogge, curiously uninvited, is not the only bigwig absent from these championships. Patrick Carter, Sport England's new chairman couldn't make it because he has gone skiing. The man hired to take Sport England off the slippery slopes misses out on what would have been the first significant live event since he took charge three months ago because of a family winter holiday in Courcheval. Carter has never been much of a sports-goer. He admits that the only previous major occasions he had attended were last year's Commonwealth Games, whose finances he helped reorganise, and the 1966 World Cup, as a 21-year-old. Sport England's freshly appointed chief executive, Roger Draper, is left to do the honours here, which may be just as well, because there are doubts about the warmth of any reception Carter would have been given. He was influential in the decision to rebuild Wembley rather than create a new national stadium in Birmingham whenhe suggested that only London would fill the corporate hospitality boxes seen as vital for the financing.

False starts twist the word games

Opening-day nerves affected some of the ex-athletes fronting the show. Jon Ridgeon slipped up when, grabbing Mark Lewis-Francis as he came off the track after the 60m, he exulted: "A bronze! Well done getting third in front of your home crowd." Lewis-Francis was fourth. Similarly, the BBC's toothsome twosome, Sally Gunnell and Roger Black, got their tongues tied at the innovative opening ceremony. Gunnell's gaffe came in introducing the venerable IAAF president, Lamine Diack, as "Liam", while Black consistently referred to the "International Amateur Athletics Federation", apparently forgetting the name-change to the International Association of Athletics Federations. Amateurs no more?

They're getting the needle here. For the first time, blood testing is being employed at these championships, with UK Sport's doping control team equipped with syringes as well as sample bottles. Yet some of the most popular athletes here are those who have failed tests in the past. Jamaican-born Merlene Ottey, the dowager queen of the track, keeps on running two months short of her 43rd birthday. The holder of 22 medals and now a Slovenian, she was fourth in the 60m and untarnished after a positive test for nandrolone in 1999 which she successfully contested, claiming itwas caused by menstrual problems. Then there's the young 60m men's champion Justin Gatlin, who had a two-year ban for amphetamines rescinded as it was prescribed medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. One who did serve his sentence was Linford Christie, still banned as an Olympic coach but clearly the crowd's favourite, the clamour for his autograph greater than that for any other competitor.

The world's media, better fed and feted than at most international events held in Britain, have been suitably impressed by the Birmingham organisation.

Shame, then, that the British team's media guide was not available where it would have been most useful – in the media centre. It was banned for an "illegal substance" – a small back-page plug for Reebok. Apparently the IAAF objected because it was feared that it might offend the event's principal sponsors, Reebok rivals adidas. It had to be distributed surreptitiously, unlike Athletics Weekly's souvenir edition, which had ensured that the cover shot of Mark Lewis-Francis prominently featured the logo of guess who? adidas.

insidelines@independent.co.uk

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