Twenty years ago, Sebastian Coe was sitting at Victoria’s Centennial Stadium, the track-and-field venue for the 1994 Commonwealth Games in Canada, when news came through that Diane Modahl, a British athlete who seemed to epitomise all that was good in the sport, had failed a drugs test and was being sent home.
Visibly shocked, Coe sighed: “If Diane Modahl is on drugs then there is no hope for athletics.”
As it happened, Modahl, then the 28-year-old reigning Commonwealth Games 800m champion, was exonerated after a lengthy appeal process. It transpired there had been serious flaws in the testing procedure. No doubt Lord Coe has a disquieting sense of déjà vu as the approaching tsunami of shame which threatens to swamp his sport might embrace a Brit of even greater stature than Modahl.
If the name being bandied around (and lawyers have moved swiftly to ensure it is not made public) as the alleged miscreant in a blood-doping scandal really is culpable then Coe must again be wondering if there is any hope for his sport.