Bad wind blows at the BBC

Caught Sailworld by mistake on Eurosport on Thursday. Just had to look in and see all that wealth. The sun glasses on those guy's noses would be your regular golf club hello money, their pocket penknives a modest kitchen refit. Ordinary people go off beer for six months to afford to have a tan like theirs. And their teeth. Don't ask about their teeth. That's genetic.

Swedish Match, peopled by a crew with Australian accents and skippered by Peter Gilmour, was racing against Ed Baird from the US in a Swedish Fjord. Got that.

"Match Racing is held almost within a football field," we were told as the two boats lumbered up and down and across the television screen scrapping for the breeze. "What Gilmour wants to do now is give the other boat some bad wind from behind," observed the commentator.

They'd do anything to win in sailing. But enough lavatorial yak for one day. Low budget telly. Zap.

The BBC sent their team where RTE fear to tread - to cover one of the better Golden League athletic meetings in Monte Carlo. Loads more money. Boats in the backround, in the foreground Roger Black, the former British 400 metres runner known as Bambi to his athletic colleagues. Anchoring the programme. Solo.

This was because his partner Linford (Christie) was . . . at home? In hiding? Clearing his name? Considering offers from ITV? Checking the small writing on the creatine bucket?

"Linford was supposed to be joining us but for obvious reasons he's staying at home," said Black as writing flashed up on screen outlining how Britain's most successful athlete ever had tested positive for the banned steroid nandrolone.

In a time of crisis you expect the BBC to stand back, take a deep breath and ask how it is going to let a little light into the whole wretched business. Forensically is usually the best way. Without appearing too old fashioned . . . well, you look at both sides and see what they're saying.

The bookmakers have Black at ten trillion to one to take over from Des Lynam as BBC's Mr Smooth. But before you could say rippling torso, the rookie front man had taken off.

"The whole Linford thing . . . I mean . . . it's totally ridiculous," said a concerned Black to studio guest and former Olympic 400m hurdles champion Sally Gunnell.

Bear with me. Heavy metal spoof group, Spinal Tap, had the volume on their music amplifiers uniquely set to 11. That was one mark higher than anyone else. Really loud. Black and Gunnell were Spinal Tap. Their sycophancy levels were playing at 11. Like the group in the Rockumentary they were almost believable participants in a debate on the most important issue in sport. They, like RTE covering the Michelle de Bruin affair, were unable to accept that a sporting icon appeared to have transgressed the rules. De Bruin tampered, Linford tested positive. Innocent or guilty, where were the difficult questions?

The BBC failed to mention that this is the second time Christie has tested positive. He got off before because he argued he had mistakenly taken Ginseng. Thankfully a third party interviewed the former Olympic gold medallist and asked him whether he thought he should step down from presenting children's programmes and coaching young runners, including Irish sprinter Emily Maher from Kilkenny. Christie laughed and said no. He should have said yes.

If there is a problem with nandrolone, the eggheads, fallible as they are, will sort it out in the lab with their mass spectrometry, chromatography and gell electrophorisis. What the two former runners offered for debate was team spirit and High Fives, or as they might say in sailing "some bad wind from behind."

Speaking of successors to the defector Des Lynam, BBC's Saturday night Match of The Day kicked off a new season to the groans of 10,000 mothers and the puerile smiles of even more grown men. Gary Lineker tried to fill the great man's chair (as did Ray Houghton for Eamon Dunphy in The Premiership on Network Two). But we all know there is more to Lynam than a polished script. There is the spirit, the attitude, the gravity, the dry humour and the moustache.

"I'll tell you what . . . Football's back," said Lineker leaning back in the chair a la Lynam. "Any good? 'Ave I got the job?"

When is the last time Match of the day began their season with a lampoon of a former presenter? Lynam's defection to ITV must have been a spleen rupturing blow to Auntie as we all thought.

Still, Alan Hansen is there with his filleting knife to keep in check any soft focus that might creep in from Lineker, who has already hardened his image by showing that he stays up that late, or Trevor Brooking.

Younger viewers will take to Lineker with his lockerroom anecdotes and occasional gentle sarcasm. But filling in for Lynam in a broader BBC sense is more than bantering with your former colleagues for an hour on a Saturday night.

Show jumpers live and breath bad wind. And they seem to live in a time warp. Watching the Dublin Horse Show, it was difficult to tell whether it had moved on from, say, 1967. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

Historic, nostalgic, cultural, wholesome and of the soil, it filled in almost a whole week for RTE. Personal gripes go back to holidays in the West in the dark years of two channels. Then, like Wimbledon, it came around once a year and you knew about it, even cared, and given your spread of television choice, you had to watch.

Most people know nothing about the sport but they know the Aga Khan Trophy and they know what a triple is (the three quick jumps where everyone in the RDS goes "Ahhh" at the end). But when, say, Formula One begin qualifying on Fridays, colder winds from F1 mainliners RTE may blow on the Aga.