Don't forget your prime purpose

Any large organisation will develop a large support infrastructure. This has its dangers. For example, the central bureaucracy can start running things for the benefit of the central bureaucracy - the accountants are on tap, rather than on top. For an organisation that can't go broke - e.g. a university - this puts in a danger of forgetting that the main purpose is to educate and to research. If the educators and researchers are put second best to image and publicity, short term gain will become long term pain. I can sometimes be heard grumbling about a lab that has single glazing rather than my desired double glazing because changing the window during the refurbishment would have "changed the external appearance of the building". I don't see this as a reason not to go ahead - the purpose of the building is to do research. The central authorities did - presumably this is an image and appearance thing, ahead of research efficiency (and energy efficiency - there is a breeze in my office (similarly benighted with single glazing) with the window closed. How much energy is wasted heating this room?)

Reading the NY Times, there are much larger illustrations of this - the US Ivy Leage university, Rutgers, has spent millions trying to become a major power in college American Football.

Now, it is not that Rutgers American football team has a large budget that is the problem. If this budget was raised from the gate receipts of people who want to watch the team, and from TV revenues for broadcasting the team, then I would have no problem with them spending this money on the team, even if that results in the team coach earning more than the professors (although how many professors would swap their tenure for the instability of a sports team manager?). This money has come from the sports fans, and so can be spent on giving the sports fans what they want. I don't see it as a necessity that income from this should be taken away and given to research any more than income from filming soap operas should be taken away and given to cancer research, except via standard taxation.

It is not even that they're spending money on something other than pure teaching and research - extra mural activities are an important part of many a students time at universities, and many employers look very favourably at the appearance of a sports team on a graduate's CV as a demonstration of commitment and team work. It is that this is *all* about image, and not about education. How much more education does the average player get on a college American football that has a winning record? How much more benefit could that money do in keeping tuition fees down, budgets up, even in supporting a much larger number of students in less high-income sports (e.g. rowing, swimming, athletics) or student theatre, music, art etc?

This can't be defended as education of rounded students. It is because someone in a big office has decided they want to see Rutgers name up in the top flight of college football. But he has forgotten what a college is for.

The Real McHoy

Every time I see a news article about this man, I just like him more. If he's not offered a knighthood, they'll be trouble...

His point on sports is particularly important - if Scotland wants to be independent, it has to be ready to be independent, which means funding everything.

Although having said that - if Hong Kong still gets its own Olympic Team, do you still have to be an independent country to have your own NOC?

Mission accomplished. Happy now?

Coming into the World Athletics Championships, commentators were saying that two medals for Great Britain would be good, three would be great.

Well, having collected a bronze in the women's heptathlon already, the women's squad have now added Gold and Silver in one race - the 400m.

Christine Ohuruogu is clearly better at running than remembering to tell people where she will be in advance...

ADDENDUM - the Court of Arbitration's statement when banning Ohuruogu gave the distinct impression that they didn't believe she was taking any illegal drugs, merely that she was far too lax and casual in informing the drug testers where she would be. So I agree with the one year ban, but not the lifetime one.

Team Slipstream

One team that looks like it is on course for a wild card entry in next year's Tour de France is the US based Team Slipstream. Led by the stridently anti-doping Jonathan Vaughters, a man who's only tangle with the doping laws is when he had to pull out of a Tour because he couldn't take a cortisone shot for a wasp sting.

Team Slipstream have teamed up with the Agency for Sporting Ethics and will test their riders 20 times as often as the UCI, and they have offered WADA complete oversight of the results.

Although T-Mobile's testing set-up didn't stop one of their riders failing a test in training, it would rather be hoped that this team's setup pretty much ensures they will be clean.

So far announced for the team are American time-triallist David Zabriskie, Scottish time-triallist and poacher-turned-gamekeeper on drugs David Millar, and climber Christian Vandevelde. A few good names, a chance of a stage win, and a clear anti-doping policy probably put them near the front of the wild-card queue. If the TdF organisers get their way, I suspect they'd rather pick stringently clean teams than fast ones...

Drugs scandal at the tour de France (next up: dog bites man)

The Tour de France is getting tough on drugs cheats - and anyone else who doesn't comply fully. And it looks like some of the teams, at least, are joining in.

Rasmussen, who looked certain to win yellow after the riders most capable of catching up enough time to threaten him in the time trial were pulled, has suddenly lost the jersey, and probably ended his career, when his Rabobank team discovered that he didn't merely forget to inform people of his whereabouts and missed drugs tests, he appeared to have lied about it. Given the pressure on the tour these days, that simply isn't good enough.

Sadly, it looks like the man now likely to win the Tour will also be viewed with suspicion by many. Contador was previously in the Manolo Saiz run Liberty Seguros-Würth team, so will be linked to Operation Puerto in many people's minds. And while his recovery from a blood clot may make the sort of comeback from hardship that the US media love, others will mutter darkly about how steroid and EPO use are known to cause clots.

Once again, and despite all the efforts otherwise, I still don't feel convinced that the winner of the Tour this year will be clean.

Tour de France in London - prologue

So Bradley Wiggins didn't manage to win in the end - after all, a top five performance in the prologue of the Tour de France is a pretty impressive achievement, and the performances by Kloden and most of all Fabian Cancellara were astonishing.

The thing is, I'm almost 100% sure there will be someone whinging on the BBC forums about how he can be satisfied with his performance if he didn't win. There are always these people around, but generally these are people who wouldn't know what it was like to be in the top 1000 in the world at something, let alone the top five. Wiggins knows what he was capable of, and he knows that three top time triallists had to put in flawless performances to beat him.

Tour de France in London

The Tour de France starts in London today - I have noticed that the logo for the start looks rather clearer than the one for the 2012 Olympics.

British sporting success (yes, really)

We now have the clear answer to the lament on watching the failure of the English team to get any further at cricket/football/rugby union, the failure of the Scottish teams to even get that far etc. of "are we good at anything?" (apart from rowing, anyway)

Track cycling. Britain is good at track cycling. Very, very, very good.

In all, Britain won seven gold medals at the latest World Championships. The next best? Australia, on two.