Back on track after Seville

One evening's action at the World Championships in Seville last week persuaded almost nine million viewers to tune into the BBC, a figure which is only normally exceeded by the Aintree Grand National. That is the compelling proof that athletics, properly packaged, is still a marketable property.

Given that the championships began under the cloud of Merlene Ottey's testing positive for steroid irregularities, the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) did well to get back on course so quickly. That was primarily a product of the early impact of Maurice Greene and Marion Jones in the sprints and then, later in the week, Michael Johnson, Hicham el Guerrouj and the peerless Haile Gebrselassie.

If Johnson was the week's most riveting personality, El Guerrouj's 1,500 metres win had the unmistakable ring of quality. And Gebrselassie showed that when required to do so, he still has the equipment that sustains winners in championship competition.

There was, too, the special chemistry that Wilson Kipketer brings to 800 metres running and Christopher Koskei's penchant for investing even the most straightforward of tasks in the 3,000 metres steeplechase with an element of suspense.

Curiously, Koskei's Kenyan team-mate, Bernard Barmasai, seldom showed as a genuine contender for a medal in this event and there was more disappointment for Barmasai yesterday when the IAAF disqualified him from the Golden League series on a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute after he allowed Koskei to win a race in Zurich.

If that Kenyan escapade projected the sport in an unfavourable light, the progress of Ludmila Engquist in the 100 metres hurdles and the message it will have sent out to millions of cancer sufferers was a source of real encouragement.

From an Irish perspective, the start of the championships coincided with the news that James McIlroy, an original choice in the squad for Seville, would in future run for Britain. That was a substantial blow to the ideal of selecting fully representative Ireland teams on an island-wide basis.

In a sense it established the mood of a disappointing week, but on the credit side was the achievement of Brendan Reilly and Ciaran McDonagh, who qualified for the finals of their respective events, the high and long jump competitions.

Reilly vindicated his decision to switch allegiance from Britain to Ireland by going clear at 2.29 metres, his best clearance in almost seven years. And given that he had to have injections to minimise back pain, that augured well for the Sydney Olympics.

So, too, did McDonagh's fine achievement in surviving the preliminaries of the long jump. The Meathman has done well to recover from a series of fitness problems, but elsewhere too many of our athletes simply failed to deliver.

That was disturbing and strengthens the case for more stringent standards to be applied in the future selection of teams for major championship events.