Anyway, Chambers . . . the UK sprinter who you'll remember got a two-year ban for using THG in 2004, came back to win a relay gold at the Europeans last August and was then snubbed by teammate Darren Campbell . . . hardly came across well as an advert for the clean path in athletics. He said the decision to use THG came down to the fact he didn't think there was a chance of being caught. That he didn't think he could win anything clean.

It got worse. A sample.

Is there any chance of someone winning an Olympic gold medal and being clean?

"It's possible, but the person taking drugs has to be having a really bad day, that's what I believe."

Do you think there are athletes taking things the authorities aren't even testing for?

"Yeah. It's simple. Science always moves faster than the testers."

So, we get a confession which he wasn't always the most forthcoming with and a kick in the teeth at the same time. It might have been easy to dismiss it as bitter ramblings if Asafa Powell hadn't answered, "Yeah, I agree with that 100 per cent" when asked a couple of days later if Chambers' belief that an athlete using drugs was more likely to win was accurate.

Powell is the joint world record holder at 100m and has spoken out against doping on numerous occasions but he conceded that it's a tough ask going up against someone with unnatural advantages. And if the fastest man in the world is finding the going hard, what about the fellas trying to knock a few tenths of a second off here and there to make any impact? If Chambers can just nonchalantly make a remark like that, what does it say to the thousands of athletes doing their damnedest but falling short? How can the cycle be stopped when athletes are being told the only way to keep up is to do what everyone else is doing? That's what Chambers himself was told and now that's the line he's feeding as well.

As it was, Justin Gatlin, the other joint record holder at 100m, just so happened to lodge his appeal against an eight-year ban for doping this very week. And it emerged that Victor Conte of BALCO fame is back in the game, suggesting in a newspaper interview that he was again supplying nutritional supplements to at least 10 athletes. Even though Conte is known for shameful self-promotion and love of the spotlight, any glint of evidence that a guy who supplied steroids and doping products to some top names in sport is involved once more must be bad news.

Truth be told, it hasn't been a great week or so for those who like their bread buttered on the wholesome side of sport. Cycling continues to leak scandals and confessions in dribs and drabs. Extracts from a book by former soigneur Jef d'Hont exposed all sorts of activities in the German Team Telekom throughout the 90s a few weeks back.

Since then, almost all the team has come out and admitted using EPO in a systematic doping programme.

Rolf Aldag and Erik Zabel . . . a green jersey winner on the Tour de France . . . held their hands up and then Bjarne Riis did his piece, admitting to using EPO and other performance-enhancing substances while winning the Tour in 1996.

Jan Ullrich, the 1997 Tour winner, is pretty much the only team member from that time not to come out with any statement so far.

There are other unsettling elements. These guys being outed owe more to the revelations on the part of others than any sudden snap of conscience.

Riis is sporting director of Team CSC, one of the big names in the sport and who numbered Ivan Basso among the roster until late last year.

Basso has been implicated in the Operation Puerto case.

Aldag is sporting director of T-Mobile, who dumped Jan Ullrich and a bunch of others in an apparent purge to help clean up cycling.

It's like a particularly unpleasant join-the-dots game with all the connections leading back to some element or history of doping.

The Floyd Landis case finished up this week, with a decision expected sometime next month.

Expect a lot more weeding out and scandals to come before things get better in the worlds of athletics and cycling.