Last week, Radio 5 Live aired a programme which examined the challenges that lie ahead for athletics in 2015, following the recent drugs scandals which have hit the sport.

In the past couple of years, numerous prominent athletes from two of the most successful athletics countries in the world, Kenya and Jamaica, have been found guilty of doping. Add to that the allegations which came last year in a German television documentary that up to 99% of Russian international athletes are doping and the picture looks even bleaker.

Most of the headlines which were generated by the programme came from the claim by Darren Campbell, the 2004 4 x 100m relay Olympic gold medallist, that he would not encourage his children to participate in athletics. Campbell claimed that he felt that the spate of recent doping scandals in his sport had made it "very difficult to keep believing in athletics".

Campbell's sentiments are disappointing, if only for the fact that abandoning the sport as a result of doping scandals does nothing to eradicate this scourge. Deserting the sport is also a tacit admission that the dopers have won.

But what struck me most about the programme was that much of what was said has been heard before. Many of the claims were uncannily similar to those which were used to defend cycling a decade-or-so ago. In the first minute of the programme, Campbell said that he believed that athletics was the cleanest it has ever been. This is backed up by little, if any, hard evidence. At the turn of this century, disciples of cycling made similar statements. They believed that in the wake of the Festina affair, the sport had rid itself of the doping which had plagued cycling for so many years. These supporters claimed that the testing was getting better and more athletes were getting caught. This is exactly the rhetoric which was used on 5 Live, most notably by Sebastian Coe, who is likely to become President of athletics governing body, the IAAF, later this year.

Coe said that he believed that the fight against doping is "a war we can't lose and it's not a war we are losing." I find it hard to agree. Rarely do I watch an outstanding athletics performance without the thought crossing my mind that it may, just may, be chemically assisted. I know that this cynicism is not helpful, nor is it warranted on every occasion. But I would be surprised to hear that I was in the minority.

There is one man who is so powerful that he almost single-handedly holds the fate of athletics in his hands. If Usain Bolt failed a drugs test, athletics as a sport would be finished. Currently, there is no evidence whatsoever that Bolt engages in any nefarious practices, rather he is viewed, in some quarters, with suspicion due purely to his outstanding performances.

Certainly, the times he has run are phenomenal. Bolt has run faster than the next six quickest men in history, all of whom have tested positive for drugs. This, by no means, signifies Bolt's guilt but, again, there is a similarity with cycling. The Festina drugs bust happened at the 1998 Tour de France. It was claimed that the 1999 Tour would be the cleanest ever yet there was a significant problem for the organisers; the times in 1999, posted by apparently 'clean' riders, were faster than the times a year previously by the proven 'dirty' riders. The reason for this became apparent; the riders in 1999 were just as doped-up as their predecessors.

This still does not implicate Bolt whatsoever but I am not alone in my cynicism. Dan Bernstein, Senior Columnist for CBS in America, wrote a piece in the aftermath of the London Olympics entitled 'Usain Bolt is Probably Doping (And You Know It)'. He claimed that athletics was now viewed "as a high-tech synergy of man and molecular engineering, in which the outcomes can still be celebrated for what they actually are, regardless of the laughable rhetoric that accompanies the games, insisting it's something more pure."

This may be cynical in the extreme but it is, sadly, what many think as they watch gold medals being won. Claiming that any particular athlete is clean because they have 'never failed a test' is, frankly, futile. Lance Armstrong never failed a test, Marion Jones never failed a test, and there are other cheats who never produced a positive doping test. The increased number of out-of-competition tests ups the likelihood of catching the dopers but it is, by no means, a water-tight system.

Coe himself admitted that the sport is still far from inhabiting the Elysian Fields but that progress is being made. The challenge that athletics faces however, is that the sport is running out of time. With every new doping story which emerges, the trust of the public is eroded further and further. And there isn't too much left.