Maybe it’s that I’m getting cynical in my old age.

I probably am.

But for all the magic of the Olympics Games, I’m unable to think about Paris 2024 without also pondering the overshadowing cloud.

That cloud is the doping cloud, and it’s particularly dark this summer.

It means I will watch all outstanding performances at this summer's Olympics and wonder about their legitimacy.

I know I’m not the only one who will watch Paris 2024 through this lens.

It’s a sad indictment of elite sport that so few are entirely trusting of outstanding performances.

But it’s undoubtedly where we are and so, the question is not will Paris 2024 be clean because the answer, definitively, is no.

There is zero chance that this, or probably any Olympics in my lifetime, will be entirely clean.

Instead, the question is how dirty will Paris 2024 be?

In a few of the particularly high-profile Olympic sports, doping has been very much in the news in recent months.

Track and field is the Olympics’ blue riband event and somewhat depressingly, there has been positive tests left, right and centre recently.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) is in charge of keeping athletics clean, or as clean as possible, and if scores of positive tests are a good sign for the sport in that it indicates that cheats are being caught then athletics is in a great state.

Conversely, though, numerous positive tests surely suggests that doping is rife.

In reality, it’s likely that both these assertions are true; that........

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