Gone are the days when a limelight-addict could step from the crowd into the final stages of a marathon race and throw the whole event into a state of confusion. Competitors in Sunday's London Marathon will have electronic chips on their shoes to enable organisers to record accurately their split and finish times.
International race director and former British Olympic athlete David Bedford told a news conference on Tuesday the chips would give accurate times for all runners at 10 km, 20 km, 30 km and 40 km as well as at the halfway and finishing points. Bedford said organisers had accepted 41,500 entrants out of 94,000 applicants and expected 30,500 to finish.
Catherina McKiernan, the women's race favourite, who ran the fastest debut time in last September's Berlin marathon, said she had no plans to attack the world record set by Kenyan Tegla Loroupe last Sunday. Loroupe clocked two hours 20 minutes 47 seconds in Rotterdam to break the 13-year-old mark set by Norwegian Ingrid Kristiansen. However, there is a rumour in London that a man is to be smuggled into the women's race to set the pace for McKiernan. The two races start 30 minutes apart.
So Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, aka one of the world's richest folk, has thrown his teddy out of the pram again. At the Gimcrack speech last year he cribbed about the lack of prizemoney in horse racing in this part of the world - loose change for any oil-rich monarch.
This week he has withdrawn his Godolphin two-year-old horses from England and is relocating them in Evry, France at the site of a former racecourse and at an estimated cost of around£4,000,000 a year.
Given that this oil-rich monarch recently sold his Racing Post newspaper to the Mirror Group for all of £1 sterling and seems to be becoming bored with the blue blood sport of thoroughbred racing, one wonders if he will pack it in altogether and go back to one of his favourite sports - camel racing.
Compromise rules are catching on as sports love-ins currently sweep the country. The Aussies came over last week with their underage side and played against footballing Gaels around the country before declaring that the compromise series between Ireland and Australia would be revitalised.
Now we hear from the Orchard county that Armagh Rugby Club and Pearse Og GAA club are again planning their annual Gaelic football-rugby match at Palace Grounds, Armagh.
Given the way that hand-tackling in GAA has evolved there are those critics who say that there is not much between the two sports anyway. For those who wish to observe this cloning process, May 15th is the date with the Happy Hooker Cup up for grabs.
Primo Nebiolo, the controversial president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), is making it difficult for athletics followers to see the main grand prix events over the summer. Having scrapped the Golden Four series and created a new six meeting Golden League in Oslo, Rome, Monte Carlo, Zurich, Brussels and Berlin, Nebiolo seems intent on selling the broadcasting rights to Sky.
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), who previously screened the Golden Four series for many European terrestrial networks, did not cough up the money for this new event leaving RTE unsure of whether they will be able to get any rights at all to the new Golden League.
If Sky, who are close to buying the British rights, buy up athletics, the exploits of Sonia O'Sullivan, now back in form, and the emerging 400 metres hurdler Susan Smith
will not be screened on terrestrial television in Ireland. The European Championships in Budapest this summer are safe - for now anyway.
For those who like their faces red and their knuckles raw, Primal Fury might just be the meal. Primal Fury is the new world heavyweight bare knuckle championship which claims to be brutal and bloody but argues that it is a safer sport than boxing. `Every blow landed is a blow suffered,' goes the promotional guff.
That there is no softening of the impact by a glove nor any protection to the hands suggests that the fighters would inflict more damage to each other but the promoters contest that the cuts received by the combatants are superficial and the jarring of the head is considerably less than in boxing.
It is common knowledge now that the sloshing around of the brain inside the skull is what causes the serious damage to boxers. Apparently boxing gloves play a major part in this jarring effect, whereas knuckles simply cut through the flesh nice and easily. The bouts are staged over three two-minute rounds with world championship contests lasting five rounds. The winner is decided by a knockout and in the event of both fighters going the distance the referee decides who is the winner. Unlike boxing, a fighter cannot be saved by the bell in any round.
Tasteless maybe but the irony is obvious. More brutal but arguably less dangerous than boxing.
In Britain they have at last caught up with the companies and soccer clubs who are ripping off their younger fans with high-priced replica shirts. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has forced the Le Coq Sportif company, which supplies kits to Coventry, QPR, Sheffield United, Kilmarnock and Swansea to abandon the practice of price fixing.
As so famously explained by two former Newcastle United executives earlier this year to an undercover News of the World reporter, shirts are made for £10 in the Far East and sold for up to £45 in shops and clubs. Stores which tried to cut their prices found themselves bullied by suppliers and clubs into keeping the cost high.
The OFT recently took action after a retailer made a complaint. He had advertised a 10 per cent reduction to anyone who pre-ordered Coventry City's jersey in August of last year.
The retailer told the OFT that the strip's makers, GPS of Barnet, North London, which owns Le Coq Sportif brand, threatened to delay delivery by two weeks unless the offer was dropped. He later had problems getting stock and believed this was because he was offering shirts at a discount price.
A partner in GPS said that the prices are forced up by the football clubs, who not only take a big slice of the cost of any shirts they sell but also demand huge fees up front from kit suppliers.
Maybe someone should take a look at the Irish scene.
People say that soccer is populated by weird folk. And it's true. Take the great Sugar Puff mystery currently alive in Sunderland. Usually a healthy Sugar Puff-eating corner of England, the crunchy breakfast cereal which adults only eat on the sly, has plummeted to an all-time low. And the reason ?
Former Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan endorses Sugar Puffs. Newcastle are playing Sunderland in the FA Cup final. Therefore Sunderland have stopped eating Sugar Puffs. Weird.
The Daily Express is carrying out a useful service for the self-proclaimed baddest football fans in the world. With 46 days to go to the World Cup they are publishing handy phrases in French.
If a Paul Gascoigne-shaped figure is on the ball, the express invites them to chant - Qui a mange tous les tartes ? (who ate all the pies ?). And for a decision the fans don't like - T'es aveugle juge de touche (are you blind linesman). Most encouraging.
