Athletics in the UK: The Rise and Fall of the BAF

128 What about the athletes? administrators of the sport were not able to match the achievements of the athletes. Tony Ward had been the long serving Press Officer of the AAA/BAAB/BAF and had striven to present British Athletics in the best possible light. This often seemed to be an impossible task, trying to balance the outstanding performances of athletes with sometimes simultaneous administrative controversies. An ever present worry was the shadow of doping cases involving British athletes and these cropped up all too often. Perversely, athletics as a sport was paying a heavy price for its leadership in the campaign against doping cheats and Britain was a leader within athletics. A further complication was that sportsmen of all kinds were referred to in the media as athletes and a quite erroneous link with the sport of athletics was often made. Tony Ward was alert to this inequity but, try as he might, the press were rarely interested to keep the record straight.