Many sports can be very damaging in the long term, and some, like motor-racing and boxing even have risks of instant death or permanent brain damage.

I think it’s more than justified to limit how far athletes will harm themselves in pursuit of prizes. The issues are starkest, of course, when the participants are just children. “Women’s” gymnastics is scandalous, as you say. Similar stresses are applied to young males too. Potential Premier League footballers have to undergo training regimes that can be little short of those of female gymnasts.

It’s us, the watching public, who are really responsible for most of this. Athletes have got to break records and perform ever more extreme feats or noone is interested in paying them the huge sums they can earn now.

Dwain Chambers has also committed the crime of wanting to win. The British (or possibly the English) don’t want to athletes to win. They want them to come a plucky second. The national psyche has gone from cheering the underdog to wanting to be the underdog. Someone can’t be the underdog if they keep winning races.