Mo Farah and London Marathon mask reality as Raducanu upsets sponsor

Mo Farah runs his final marathon in London today. The presence of one of Britain’s all-time greats will be the cherry on top for an event which, framed against the city’s magnificent landmarks, is a showcase for the best of humanity with more than £60m raised for charity by 45,000 competitors over 26 gruelling miles.

You could not wish for a finer advert for the transformative power of athletic endeavour – but the communal uplift it annually delivers masks an altogether more uncomfortable reality for athletics itself this year. Away from the shiny shop window, the sport in this country is in a parlous state.

The golden glow from the London Olympics that Farah lit up a decade ago has faded; the legacy for the sport is one of impecunity and struggle. Unable to pay the wages of its elite coaches and with its reserves fast running out, UK Athletics is in danger of being declared bankrupt.

Reports this week revealed the organisation, which lost £1.8m last year, has been forced to cut team sizes for the European Under-23 and Under-20 Championships this summer because of the lack of money. Contracts with top global stars approached to appear in London’s Diamond League meeting in July remain unsigned. Staff have been made redundant.

It is hardly the high-performance environment the athletes who will shoulder Britain’s medal hopes at the world championships in Budapest this summer need or desire. Mismanagement is part of the story – moving the high-performance unit from Loughborough to Birmingham has come in at more than £1m over budget – as are the legal bills from weeding out abusive coaches but there is also a broader existential issue. Athletics just isn’t selling like it used to.

In the scramble for the crumbs left over for sponsorship and media rights once football has taken the lion’s share, it has fallen well down the sporting pecking order. This is not just a local story. In the United States track and field has the same problems in an even more crowded marketplace dominated by baseball, basketball and American Football.

Michael Johnson’s view is that there are fewer people in love with the sport these days – and he is someone that cares deeply. Usain Bolt’s take is that athletics needs tweaks to make it more exciting and is lacking a superstar. Someone like him in fact. There is something in that. Bolt was a once-in-a-generation gift for athletics.

For all the appeal of an Armand Duplantis, Sydney McLaughlin or a Karsten Warholm, there remains a giant Bolt-shaped hole in athletics it has struggled to fill since the Jamaican hung up his spikes. The nature of the athletics calendar is that its appeal tends to be cyclical. Its visibility always tails off between Olympics but it seems to have retreated deeper into the sporting shadows than ever since Tokyo.

Athletics still possesses the capacity to captivate like few other sports. Eilish McColgan’s gutsy 10,000m victory at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games was one of the sporting highlights of last summer. The thunderous roar of the Alexander Stadium crowd that night as McColgan emulated the feat of her mum Liz 36 years on was a testament to the universality of its appeal.

Domestically, Britain is not short on talent. Jake Wightman is the world 1,500m champion and in Dina Asher-Smith, Keely Hodgkinson and Laura Muir, Britain has strong medal hopes for the Paris Olympics next year but they do not have the cut-through of a Farah or a Jess Ennis.

UK Athletics is trying to boost the profile of its top names with an access-all-areas, behind-the-scenes documentary in the build-up to Paris along the lines of Formula One’s Drive To Survive. The working title is 365 To Gold and the athletes are up for it but so far they have yet to secure a backer.

The broadcasting deal they have with the BBC is worth buttons with most of the action farmed off on the corporation’s website, the red button or iPlayer. What UK Athletics would give for exposure like today’s marathon will enjoy when it will be given the full works on BBC 1.

It will be an inspiring sight with the athletes, the fun runners and the wheelchair racers pushing themselves to the limit and millions raised for good causes. Farah will be at the centre of the show, being given the London send-off he deserves on the most punishing lap of honour in sport. Maybe he can rattle a bucket for UK Athletics on his applause-drenched way round the course.

But a special week for Tom Price…

A century and a hat-trick in the same day? Whatever happens in the rest of his cricket career, Price will never forget Thursday, April 20, 2023.

The 23-year-old became the first player in the history of first-class cricket to pull off the dream double for Gloucestershire against Worcestershire.

The Oxford-born all-rounder had never scored a county century before – and it looked pretty unlikely when he walked out at No 9 with Gloucestershire 45-7 at New Road – but he then proceeded to flay 12 fours and four sixes in a thrilling counter-attacking 109.

That was just the starter to the main course feast which comprised of Azhar Ali, Jack Haynes and Brett D’Oliveira all dismissed for ducks in successive balls. Priceless.