So, it turns out that Linford Christie won’t, after all, be carrying the Olympic torch for 250 metres through the streets of London as the time-honoured symbol of the Games makes its 85,000-mile global journey to Beijing. However, it seems that it will be carted at some point by Sir Trevor McDonald, who, over the course of a long and distinguished career in broadcasting, has rarely set the record books alight from a pace point of view, but who has never once tested positive for nandrolone. (So far as we know, anyway. The official testing regulations for newsreaders have been a mess since that business with Reginald Bosanquet and even today there are no published figures in this area.)

The good news is that the anger and repugnance that frothed on contact with the possibility that the torch would be borne by a convicted drugs cheat can now recede, leaving in its wake only some confusion as to this provocative story’s provenance.

On the one hand, Christie’s office maintains that he got an official come on down from the mayor as long ago as November and points out that the former sprinter, who has denied etc, may well be busy that day (April 6) in any case. On the other, Ken Livingstone’s people insist that they never invited Christie in the first place and were much too busy buttering up McDonald.

Still, it’s a shame if the possibility has been raised only to be dashed. And having given the prospect due consideration, this column finds itself entirely in support of Christie playing a part in the torch procession – though only if certain conditions are broadly met regarding the nature of the ceremony and what it is intended to convey.

For instance, it would seem fine to me if Christie ran with the torch for 250 metres – but back in the direction from which it had just come. Then he could hand it to a newsreader (Nicholas Witchell?) who could start off in the right direction again. It would be a simple but unignorable piece of pageantry, sending out a clear message that cheating is emphatically not the way forward, unlike newsreading. I can’t see why anyone would take exception to that.

(NB. We should bear in mind, perhaps, that there are lots of young children out there who don’t know who Christie is or what befell him in 1999, in the form of a two-year ban for steroid use, and that therefore, if he is going to be involved, it may be an idea for him to wear a costume that made his role in the ceremony completely clear. I’m drawn, myself, to the thought of a stripy burglar’s jumper and face mask, but other people, such as Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, may have some better ideas.)

Alternatively, what about letting Christie carry the torch forwards for 250 metres, but for a portion of the route that is completely underground, like through a pedestrian underpass? Here, again, the symbolism would be richly and undeniably communicative. It could also be wonderfully redemptive if the 1992 Olympic 100 metres champion could be led back up into the light by a newsreader, possibly Natasha Kaplinsky or, failing that, Jon Snow.

We take it that the option of Christie running with a torch that has been temporarily extinguished is out of the question (the point being that the flame is supposed to be eternal). What may work very well, though, is if some room could be found in the procession for a kind of repentant relay, in which the torch were passed from Christie to Christine Ohuruogu and then on to Dwain Chambers, only for the latter to have it snatched out of his hand by McDonald, dressed as an angel, running the other way and bringing the Olympic symbol forwards again in a massive, dramatic moment of retribution and rebirth for UK athletics in its entirety.

Complex? Perhaps. But likely to be memorable in a way that, say, 250 metres of McDonald running on his own probably won’t be.

So, some good may yet follow from this apparently needless controversy after all. We very much hope that Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee, now feels inspired to get round a table with Christie soon and thrash out a compromise position.

The disgraced sprinter was, by his own account, bitterly disappointed not to be involved in an ambassadorial role with the successful London 2012 Olympic bid. Here, surely, is a prime opportunity for him to return to the fold and make a positive contribution.

Darts at risk from enduring Power cut

Watching Phil “The Power” Taylor get miserably hammered by (of all people) Peter Manley at the darts on Thursday night, Dave Lanning sighed and went Wagner. “This is a twilight of the gods experience,” the vastly experienced Sky Sports darts commentator opined.

Over the top, some might say. But they wouldn’t necessarily be right. The Power’s capitulation to “One Dart” was blessedly shorter than the Ring Cycle, of course, but it was genuinely worrying in a way that opera rarely is. Taylor, it would appear, is on the slide. He was unbeaten in the Premier League before the 2008 competition started.

This season, at 47, looking feeble to an unprecedented degree around the doubles, the 13-times world champion (but not since 2006) has lost three matches out of four and faces a battle just to make the knockout stages. In boxing, they say the first thing to go is the legs. In darts, a much less forgiving sport, the first thing to go is everything.

Which is why, incidentally, the wise darts fan is keeping a careful check on his excitement about the proposed Legends Tour, a televised, clock-reversing exercise starring, among others, Keith Deller, Eric Bristow, John Lowe and Bobby George, due to start in May and promising, unless the years really do fall away, a very long night at the oche. Back in the present, meanwhile, the sport has much to fear from a Power-outage.

In the era of Taylor’s domination, darts has exploded into 5,000-seat arenas. But who can keep it there when he’s gone? More particularly, who can keep it there when he’s still around but cutting an ever diminishing figure, chewing reflectively on the ends of his flights and failing to nail double top for the third set (one of a series of almost unthinkable occurrences on Thursday)? Troubling times.

Who didn’t nod forcefully when they heard Jonathan Woodgate’s aggrieved thoughts on the state of the London property market? The Tottenham Hotspur centre back and his girlfriend are still living in an hotel after his transfer from Middlesbrough, waiting for an affordable home to come up.

“House prices are a joke,” Woodgate said. “It’s unbelievable. When you are looking about and you see some of the houses and you think, ‘What?’ But that’s London. Hopefully I can find a house and get settled. You just want the right place for you and you want to get it at the right price.”

Clearly this dangerously overheated market represents no obstacle for the super-rich and people with City bonuses to spend. But it’s a significant, spirit-sapping hindrance for a typical young couple, struggling to get a first foot on the ladder on £80,000 per week.