It was not, by any means, a jaw-dropping moment of parliamentary drama. A mumbled question from the buffoonish Tory MP Jesse Norman in which he appeared to link a British winner of the London Marathon to the snowballing doping crisis was more the spark for a knowing look among the handful of reporters present in the Thatcher Room at Portcullis House.
No one walked out of that committee room with any certainty about what would happen next. Certainly, Norman’s clumsy allusion did not immediately appear to be a gamechanger. Call it panic, call it a nettle that had to be grasped at some stage, but Paula Radcliffe and her advisers decided she could stay silent no longer.
Whatever you think of Radcliffe’s decision not to respond in the face of mounting rumours about her position on the list of athletes with suspicious blood values obtained by the German broadcaster ARD and the Sunday Times, it is impossible not to have some sympathy on a human level.
Ever since December, when just her name appeared on a less complete version of the list referred to in an earlier ARD documentary, the athletics world has been abuzz. Throughout the publicity drive that accompanied her final London Marathon in April, the timebomb was ticking and she faced a dilemma: stay quiet and hope the whispers on specialist running forums and Twitter would not reach a wider audience? Or come out and attempt to explain the context?
By the time she arrived in Beijing as a TV pundit for the world championships for the BBC, following stories hinting at her place on a more complete list detailing the values of 5,000 athletes taken over 11 years, there was no one within a five-mile radius of the Bird’s Nest who did not know she was the prominent British athlete referred to.
Now her name is public, a little context is helpful. It is worth bearing in mind the list as it featured in the original ARD documentary made by the fearless Hajo Seppelt in December was incomplete. He was careful not to focus on individuals but to highlight the wider allegations that the International Association of Athletics Federations had failed to act on suspicious readings.
Radcliffe’s name featured but was not accompanied by any blood value readings, unlike other athletes. When she was contacted by newspapers and asked to defend herself, her initial silence was perhaps understandable – if inadvisable. What is more difficult to understand is her silence when the second wave of stories landed.
It is hard to escape the feeling that had she gone public, with a full explanation and independent analysis of the results (as she did this week), she would have carried public sympathy. In doing so she might also have added to the public understanding of a complex area that remains a mix of the scientific and the subjective.
By staying quiet for so long, and reacting aggressively with threats of legal action and injunctions, she only stored up the problem. And, in doing so, she invited interpretations such as that of Steve Magness, the whistle-blower at the heart of the allegations aimed at Alberto Salazar. Magness said: “If the science and external circumstances really showed that her test results did not show doping, why not hand it over to as many experts as possible, explain the situation and have them all determine it? Let the research dictate the results. For someone who has been outspoken her whole career, it’s very disappointing that when the tables are turned she clams up.”
All in the sport must be more careful not to instinctively rush to the defence of British athletes. This groupthink could be seen in the appalled reactions to the revelation Mo Farah missed two tests in the runup to 2012, or in the instinctive rush to defend Radcliffe.
Amid the sympathy for her, there should also be a hard-headed recognition there are wider forces at play here. Like Sebastian Coe, Radcliffe remains on the Nike payroll. It is impossible to believe the US company would not have had its say.
Those close to Radcliffe would argue her reaction was understandable. Here was an athlete let down not only by her international federation but also arguably by her national governing body and, in their view, the media, and left in an impossible position.
Yet consider, too, the motivation of ARD’s whistle-blower. This was someone within the IAAF’s anti-doping unit, so concerned about what they saw as a lack of action over an extended period of a decade that they felt they had no other option but to leak the data. It was a cry for help.
In the fallout, the conduct of Norman should not escape scrutiny. There were two likely courses of action at the select committee hearing. One was that, as in the past, the committee would co-operate with the Sunday Times to dramatically make public under parliamentary privilege information the paper had been unable to get into print. The other was that they would ignore the soap opera surrounding the identity of those on the list and focus on the wider issues. Instead he chose a curious middle ground, mumbling an insinuation that could only have pointed to Radcliffe but then publicly insisting he had not meant do so.
To make matters worse he took to the airwaves to blame the messengers in a mess of an interview – accusing the “press pack” of being a “herd of ungulates” who had taken a “single snippet” in an attempt to “bounce” a statement out of Radcliffe. It was all deeply unedifying. Whether cock-up or conspiracy, Norman should hold up his hands rather than hit out.
Ultimately it is impossible not to agree with Dr Mike Ashenden, the expert used by the Sunday Times who as far as it is possible to tell has acted impeccably throughout, that a period of “hyper-transparency” in athletics is required if trust is to have any chance of being restored. As well as taking responsibility for testing and sanctioning away from the IAAF and handing it to a new independent body as a matter of urgency, Lord Coe would do well to follow his suggestion not only for the number of blood tests to be published but also anonymised versions of the results.
In the fuss over Norman’s bungled finger-pointing, Ashenden’s testimony was all but forgotten. The real scandal would be if the sideshow surrounding individuals detracted from the wider allegations of endemic, institutionalised doping and corruption over years in large swathes of the world.
