On Athletics: Probably the last thing athletics needed at the moment was another fallen idol, someone who through success and unyielding dedication provided hope and inspiration across the sport, only to be revealed as not everything he or she was made out to be.

But so it has proved with Britain's champion triple jumper Jonathan Edwards.

It should be pointed out immediately this has nothing to do with a positive drugs test, or indeed his enduring reputation as the greatest triple jumper of all time. Instead it's about Edwards losing his religion, and with that the sport losing possibly its most famous advocate of divine intervention - or at least divine inspiration - on the road to glory.

And it wasn't simply that Edwards looked to God for the courage and strength to take on the world's best triple jumpers and beat them. Which of course he did, most famously at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, when he three times improved the world record, pushing it out to 18.29 metres, which still stands, and also when taking Olympic gold in Sydney 2000.

For Edwards, triple jumping was a mere extension of his devout Christianity, a faith fundamental to his identity. It was what drove him to become a full-time athlete back in 1987, so that his preordained success would enable him to evangelise to an unbelieving world. And no one ever doubted this faith, not after he withdrew from the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo because his event was scheduled for the Sabbath.

Since retiring in 2003, however, Edwards found himself taking a leap of faith in the other direction, and has recently been describing his conversion to devout atheist.

"I never doubted my belief in God for a single moment until I retired from sport," he said. "But when I retired, something happened that took me by complete surprise. I quickly realised that athletics was more important to my identity than I believed possible . . . With one facet of my identity stripped away, I began to question the others, and, from there, there was no stopping. The foundations of my world were slowly crumbling."

He continued: "The only inner problem that I face now is a philosophical one. If there is no God, does that mean that life has no purpose? Does it mean that personal existence ends at death? These are thoughts that do my head in."

Holy Moses! Normally such crises of faith happen every day of the week, but with Edwards there is an additional and equally fundamental question: did the god he was competing for therefore have any say in his triple-jump successes?

Edwards reckons he did, at least in a less-than-theological sense: "I now realise my belief in god was sports psychology in all but name. Believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious."

That's a little more reassuring. Athletes, like most sportspeople, are notoriously superstitious. Just watch a group of distance runners line up for a race and see how they typically bless themselves in sync prior to the starter's gun.

Sometimes this faith is for real, other times fallacious, but if they all believe they have God on their side then clearly some of them will be left disappointed. Or, as Muhammad Ali once asked, "How can I lose when I have Allah on my side?"

Does this mean rival deities compete for the success of rival athletes? Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco would always fall deep into prayer after his 1,500-metre triumphs, and he wasn't necessarily worshipping the same deity as many of his rivals.

But when Edwards entered the Olympic Stadium in Sydney with a tin of sardines in his kitbag he was probably taking his faith to the extreme.

The sardines, by the way, symbolised the fish Jesus used in the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, and for Edwards they provided a reminder that the result, win or lose, was in God's hands.

The other extreme is more difficult to find, but one notable example is provided by Lance Armstrong in his book Every Second Counts: "I don't believe in a neat religious reckoning . . . I think too many people look to religion as an excuse, or a crutch, or a bail-out. I think that what you've got is what you've got, here and now."

Prior to Edwards, the athlete most celebrated for religious zeal was the Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell, the 1924 Olympic champion at 400 metres.

Liddell, depicted in the highly sentimental film Chariots of Fire, was a devout Christian and did withdraw from the 100 metres because he would not run on Sundays, but unlike his film portrayal, he had doubts about that decision right up to the end.

Perhaps religious belief in athletics or any sport is best pitched somewhere between Edwards, at his Christian peak, and Armstrong. Edwards has proved the dangers of extreme zeal, especially when retirement comes.

Though perhaps, as a triple jumper, he has one more phase coming: a third leap of faith, this time back in the other direction.