You're surprised that the British media thinks she's clean? I am too. After watching BBC coverage of the WC they seem completely objective and unbiased.
Excerpt from recent Kimmage article:
In August 1999, at the Golden League meeting in Monaco, there wasn't much dancing in the BBC tribunes when it was announced that Linford Christie, the 1992 Olympic 100m champion, had tested positive for an anabolic steroid at an indoor meeting in Germany.
Roger Black, a former team-mate of the sprinter, was anchoring the coverage that night and was joined in studio by another former Olympian, Sally Gunnell. It was the second positive test of Christie's long and controversial career but the impression given was that Bambi had just been shot. "This whole Linford thing is totally ridiculous," Black announced.
"It can't be right," Gunnell concurred.
Then they crossed to Steve Cram for the reaction in Monaco. "There's lots of questions being asked but not many answers around at the minute," he said. "Obviously Linford himself is the first to protest his innocence and I would say that probably, if you did a straw poll of athletes around here, you'd have an awful lot of people on his side."
One was Allison Curbishley: "I believe Linford is innocent," she said.
Brendan Foster questioned the testing: "Until it is 100 per cent how dare they bring the name of an athlete like Linford Christie into question?" Katherine Merry and Darren Campbell also lent their support. Christie was banned for two years but continued, with the sport's blessing, to work as a coach.
The waters muddied four years later when Dwain Chambers - the second Briton, after Christie, to break 10 seconds for the 100m - was popped. Unlike Christie, there were no protestations of innocence. Chambers held up his hands, served his time and gave an interview to the BBC that was remarkable for its honesty. This is what he told Matthew Pinsent when asked if a clean athlete could beat a doped athlete in an Olympic final: "It's possible, but the person that's taken drugs has to be having a real bad day. That's what I believe." The response was fascinating. Roger Black, so unquestioning of Christie, was one of many who lined up to question Chambers.
"It upsets me when Dwain comes out with statements that you cannot win an Olympic gold medal without taking drugs," he said. "That's factually wrong and it does an enormous amount of damage to the kids who want to come into the sport. I understand him wanting to be a shining example of what you can do clean but I don't buy that. He knew what he was doing and he should be big enough to put his hands up and say, 'I need to walk away'."
And what are we to make of the remarkable Jonathan Edwards?
Four years ago, over breakfast in London, I reminded the BBC anchor and former triple-jump champion, that if there was one thing he had always done better than jumping forwards, it was jumping backwards. In 1988, he was adamant God did not want him competing on Sundays; in 1993 he was sure God did.
In 2000, he travelled to the Olympic final in Sydney with a tin of sardines in his kitbag to symbolise the loaves and fishes and was offering silent prayers to God ("I place my destiny in your hands. Do with me as you will."); in 2007, he was telling the world that he no longer believed in God. And hadn't he also denounced the "undignified" Dwain Chambers?
"No, I don't know where this has come from," he protested. "I've always liked Dwain. What he did was wrong, and I wouldn't condone it in any way, but I think athletes, young athletes, are vulnerable. They make decisions based on wanting to be the best they can be; they trust people perhaps they shouldn't trust; they defer responsibility for their decisions to other people. So, yes, Dwain made mistakes but was he the greatest sinner within that whole thing? Maybe, maybe not."
"What about Linford?" I asked.
"I think his positive test was contamination."
"What about his positive in 1988 (the Seoul Olympics)?"
"It was a different world in '88, wasn't it?" he said. "People didn't understand quite . . . "
"I think they understand that cheating is cheating," I interrupted.