However - the piece from Dick Pound suggests that changes to the banned list were first published in Sep 15, so there's a significant time to make sure you're "clean' by Jan 16.

You would assume that someone like Sharapova, at the very top of the game, has people employed to ensure she doesn't take things that are banned.

I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to believe that an elite sportsperson, in a sport with plenty of money riding on it and where they're paid lots of money, can take something without knowing what's in it or whether that substance is banned or not. Especially in individual sport.

I have no specific knowledge in this case but I have heard (from a sports conditioner) of cases where people have been taking banned substances alongside other substances that are initially legal. They've managed to mask the banned substances but then caught out when one of the initially legal substances they're taking is made illegal because they don't know how to mask it.

I think the smart money goes on her having people to ensure she doesn't get caught.

We're not in the amateur game any more. She's a fully professional athlete. It stands to reason she and every other fully professional athlete will seek to exploit all possible avenues of advantage - legal or not. She would be UN-professional not to. If people didn't want this kind of thing cropping up in sport they should never have agreed to the introduction of professionalism.

I mean, I've yet to hear a single person argue the difference between performance-enhancing and non-performance-enhancing drugs without sounding ridiculous.

She's been earning around £30 million a year with endorsements and corporate sponsorship. Clearly it's been worth the risk. The hypocrisy of those corporate companies is laughable though. They're happy to throw millions at her when she's the apparent golden girl but now she's been caught out they run for the hills as fast as they can to distance themselves from a 'cheat'.

To be fair - BOTH parties know the end-result should the athlete get found out. There can be no complaints from either side.

By the way - did anyone else think Ernie Els [uSIX-PUTTING FROM TWO FEET[/u the first hole at the Masters ... erm ... [istrange?[/i

Adding to the above, I used to work for one of the big four betting companies and got to know several of the guys operating in a hardened IT sub-basement behind three inches of steel. Knowing the way those guys operated they would have been all over that incident like a rash.

People think I'm suspicious. Betting companies are like a privatised KGB.

So what do they make of Leicester City's rise to the top, the demise of Chelsea, or even the poor start from the Rhinos ?

Given the corruption and betting scandals we've heard about already in other areas can we trust anything anymore ?

Well, I'm still waiting for whatever action was promised in the wake of accusations that up to FOUR THOUSAND MATCHES had been fixed in the German Bundesliga.

Another one of these headlines which sink without trace.

Regarding Leicester, whilst the big betting companies take an interest in ANY bet over £20.00 placed either on-line or in a branch (in which case your photo will have been taken) they are less likely to look at performance over a lengthy time period (i.e. a season) than single events within tournaments or matches which are wide open to fixing.

If I could compile a list of criteria which they deem "suspicious" Els six-putt would be right near the top. Big name player (a former champion?). Big tournament. The FIRST HOLE. An extremely unlikely outcome etc. etc.

Of course, we shouldn't forget that happens even to honest people. But I can guarantee that a hell of a lot of processing power will have been devoted to bets placed on Els over the last few weeks (maybe months). If there's any kind of correlation they'll find it. Whether anything will be done about it is another question entirely...

Has this morphed into another fixed thread, or are you taking something and getting yourself muddled up? This isn't the betting thread, where your rather quaint Els conspiracy theory was debunked. It's about Sharapova, isn't it?

Or, have I missed an opportunity - because if I could have got a bet on whether pro tennis players take substances then I'd have been on, but I can't find any bookies willing to give odds

Do you usually wait EIGHT WEEKS before responding to a post?

Don't answer that.

I think the eight weeks is the average time between ANY posts on the Mugwump's blogs page - sorry Sin Bin. You should be grateful, you're almost talking to yourself. Although actually that's all you ever do