Sir Mo Farah speaks of his “relief” that the investigation into Alberto Salazar has been completed as if the whole chapter is over. Done and dusted.
For athletics’ sake if only that were true. That it could put a big full stop on the saga and move on.
The problem with cases involving coaches is that their athletes are still out there and, rightly or wrongly, suspicion is not so easy to erase.
This is absolutely not to suggest that Salazar gave illegal substances to Farah or, for that matter, to Sifan Hassan, who broke the mile world record this summer and added the world 10,000m here.
It is to make the point that the reason cases like this are so damaging to athletics is because scepticism remains long after the circus has left town.
Without trust athletics has nothing. If seeing is not believing you might as well forget it.
This is the cross the sport bears. It needs total buy-in in order for it to work and it has not had that for a long time.
