Usain Bolt a bright light gleaming through the dark doping cloud engulfing athletics

DRUG scandals have engulfed athletics in Rio and, while he doesn’t like being called the sport’s saviour, the fact is Jamiacan superstar Usain Bolt has a big job to do.

Usain Bolt has the weight of the athletics world on his shoulders: again. Picture: Getty Images

PLEASE Usain, can you get us out of a bit of bind again?

Last year we pleaded for you to come through at the world championships as a drug cloud started to settle over the sport.

If that two-time drug cheat Justin Gatlin had beaten you in Beijing then we were all convinced the world was going to end.

Usain Bolt has the weight of the athletics world on his shoulders: again. Picture: Getty Images

But you delivered even with a banged-up body and we all felt warm and fuzzy about track and field again.

That didn’t exactly last long. So you know how we were worried last year, well, we’re petrified now.

We know you don’t like being called the saviour of athletics but it’s a fact.

Let’s just run through what’s been happening in your sport over the past 12 months.

You might have noticed no Russians at the track because they’ve been kicked out of the Games.

In the biggest crisis to hit the sport, the IAAF ruled they couldn’t compete because of a systematic government-backed doping scheme.

This was revealed by WADA, not just in one report but two, with the depth of the cheating breathtaking and scary.

But they weren’t the only country fingered with grave fears of how the drug testing operations were run in Kenya.

It would seem with good reason given a Kenyan coach was sent home from Rio the day before the athletics program started for posing as an athlete for a drugs test.

You couldn’t make some of this stuff up but it got even more outrageous yesterday with news that Russia’s only athlete who’d been allowed to compete in Rio had been, wait for it, suspended.

We know you don’t like being called the saviour of athletics but it’s a fact.

Long-jumper Darya Klishina had received special dispensation from the IAAF to compete – the only one of the country’s 68 selected athletes – because she lived in the US and was able to show she hadn’t been a part of the local system.

Well, that’s what we were led to believe.

Yesterday the IAAF released a short statement saying her exceptional-eligibility status had been revoked as new information had come to light.

Klishina is appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and on social media claimed she was a victim. “I am a clean athlete and have proved that already many times and beyond any doubt.”

So as you can see Usain, there has been a bit going on and it’s all bad.

Gatlin winning today takes badness to a whole new level.

You’re the greatest there has ever been. We will never see anyone like you again but just one more for the road would be greatly appreciated.

Originally published as Usain Bolt a bright light gleaming through the dark doping cloud engulfing athletics