Knighting Wiggins so early was just asking for trouble

The incomparable Roger Bannister, whose passing marks the end of our links with a vanished age of sporting innocence, could have been knighted in 1954, such were his achievements in that year. He was eventually knighted 21 years later, in 1975: he could have been knighted for services to medicine or athletics, or both. We have started to play fast and loose with knighthoods. Bradley Wiggins and David Brailsford were both knighted at the end of 2012, the year of the London Olympics and Wiggo’s epic win in the Tour de France. Not looking such a bright idea now though. Wiggo and Brailsford are perfect examples of the rule that sports people shouldn’t be knighted while still on active duty. It’s just asking for trouble.

Sport has always been about rules and laws; now it seems to be about ‘ethical lines’, too, more particularly the one that Wiggins crossed by getting pumped full of a steroid called triamcinolone just before the 2012 Tour and apparently on several other occasions.