The battle to get ahead of the drugs cheats will never be won but that´s no reason for abandoning itThis Sunday, in one of the biggest nights of the sporting calendar, the BBC´s sports personality of the year is decided. Apart from the shortage of women, the other striking feature of the 12-strong shortlist is that only one of the contenders favoured by bookies - the boxer Anthony Joshua - comes to the contest free of the small nagging questions about their fitness to be heroes. The latest to be questioned is the four-times Tour de France champion Chris Froome, who faces further inquiries over an `adverse analytical finding`. The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that questions had been raised by a test carried out in early September when Britain´s best cyclist was on his way to victory in La Vuelta, the Spanish race that, in an almost unprecedented feat, he won only a few weeks after winning the Tour de France. The test suggests he exceeded the permitted levels of the asthma drug salbutamol, which as an asthmatic he can take in strictly controlled amounts. He protests that he stuck to the advice of his doctors, and Team Sky is confident that further testing on the speed with which his body absorbs the drug will exonerate him - as, last month, Bradley Wiggins, a former Team Sky member, was cleared of `jiffygate` doping allegations.Of the other leading contenders, the distance runner and icon of the London Olympics Mo Farah has now split from the controversial coach Alberto Salazar, strongly denying that it was connected with allegations of misuse of prescription drugs. Lewis Hamilton is a tax exile - as indeed is Chris Froome. They are all rich far beyond the dreams of Sunday night´s voters: Anthony Joshua, the boy from Watford, is tipped to be the first boxing billionaire. Their trouble is that they compete in a world of eye-watering rewards, where marginal advantage is the alchemy they all seek. It would be hard to design a better system to incenti ...
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