By Kevin Byrne, guest columnist

These are obviously bad times for the sport. That cannot be understated.

All it takes is a quick Google news search for the word "athletics" and you'll see how bad the situation is. In the nuttiest of nutshells: Russia - one of the strongest athletics nations in the world - has been covering up drug test results for years, and the former president of the IAAF is involved.

Pretty bad, huh?

But there are reasons to be hopeful. And here are 10 of them:

1) IT IS NOW ALL OUT IN THE OPEN

Speculation about doping in Russia has been rife for years. Now we know the true extent of the problem. This is simply too big for there to be no consequences. Seb Coe, the new IAAF president, said that he wanted to make clear changes in his first 100 days and this is the perfect opportunity for him to do that.

Mariya Savinova takes gold at the 2010 World Indoor Championships ahead of Jenny Meadows. Image: PhotoRun

2) CLEAN ATHLETES WILL BENEFIT

Based on what was published in WADA's report, it is highly likely that many medals from recent major championships will be stripped from Russian athletes and reallocated. Yes, it would have been better had the cheats not been there in the first place and had the clean athletes had their moment on the podium. But it is still a positive outcome; medals don't always end up in the hands of the rightful owners.

For the complete story: http://jumping-the-gun.com/?p=12260