Inside Lines

In a week when the American heavyweight boxer James Toney has his year's suspension for steroid abuse halved so he can fight for a title, and the serially absent-minded Christine Ohuruogu is conveniently hustled back into the talent-deficient British athletics team just in time for the World Championships, some might ponder what sort of anti-drugs message is being dispatched. Not that athletics fans really give a fig. The biggest off-track attraction at Crystal Palace last week was Linford Christie, who signed so many autographs his pen ran dry. Of course, the former OIympic champion remains in denial over his own aberration, but give him his due. Few have put more back into the sport. Since his failed test eight years ago, Christie, 47, has become a veritable Pied Piper, coaching and working with inner-city children. His ongoing community project, Street Athletics, which gives youngsters the chance to show how fast they can be over 60 metres, has its finals in Manchester next month. "I am pleased to be involved in something so positive," Christie tells us. Quite.

Cinders fly in McLaren-style speedway spat

Is 'crusader' Davies bidding for top job?

Rogge in the firing line over human rights

Angry Castro may pull Cuban boxers out of Olympic Games

A Hamilton and Alonso-like spot of road rage has surfaced in speedway, where Poole Pirates stars Edward Kennett and his Danish captain Bjarne Pedersen are having a similar spat. The young Brit complains to the 'Dorset Echo' that Pedersen is "not a team rider" and that he is unhappy racing alongside him. More than engines became overheated after Kennett was nearly slammed into a fence when the more experienced Dane drifted wide at a turn during a recent race. Promoter Matt Ford admits: "They've struggled to adapt to each other." Sound familiar, Lewis?

David Davies, once a bastion of the FA, has spent the week putting the football world to rights with daily Alastair Campbell- like outpourings in a national broadsheet and on Sky. Repel the foreign invasion, curb the greed, open up disciplinary hearings, give refs technological assistance, he demands. One might question why he did not press these fundamental issues while he was the FA's executive director, or if he did, why was he ignored? Winning the World Cup in 2010 should be the priority, argues Davies (pictured), though one suspects he feels bidding for it in 2018 is an even greater one. Especially as England would need a charismatic bid leader, a role the born-again crusader is believed to strongly fancy himself.

A year from now, Jacques Rogge is likely to be spluttering in the polluted air of Beijing's Olympic Stadium. But his thoughts also will be on whether he should stand for a further term as International Olympic Committee president, a decision he says he will make at the end ofthe Games. As yet, no logical successor has emerged, and much will depend on what sort of year the Belgian surgeon endures on the road to Beijing. Inevitably it will be a rocky one, with human-rights groups preparing to fire as many bullets as China's prolific executioners.

Fidel Castro is still fit enough to have boxed the ears of Cuba's finest fighters. The 80-year-old (pictured) is furious that all but the retired Mario Kindelan of their five Athens gold medallists have either defected and turned pro, or been caught attempting to. He has threatened to withdraw the team from the Olympic qualifiers.

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