THERE are three certainties in life - death, taxes and Britain's sprint relay squad botching the baton change at major championships.

It wasn't quite as big a farce as they managed at the Olympics, but it's getting to the stage where the team might as well consist of Brian Rix (with his trousers down), Charlie Drake, Norman Wisdom and Frankie Howerd.

Woe, woe and thrice woe. If professional athletes with so little else to do but train cannot get such a simple thing right, is it any wonder we won only two medals at Edmonton?

Perhaps professionalism is the problem. As with many sports, the more people earn the less inclined many of them are to bust a gut.

Denise Lewis became a huge celebrity after her Olympic gold, but her coach criticised her for leaving her preparations too late for Edmonton.

Our 4x400m relay squad managed to hand the baton over without mishap, but none of them were in prime condition.

Considering the back-up and general expertise which is available to them, we are entitled to expect most of our best athletes to peak at the right time.

Steve Ovett refuses to blame Playstations and television, arguing that there were plenty of other distractions when he was embarking upon his athletics career in Brighton.

Perhaps so, but there now appears to be a different mindset fostered by a comfort zone which undermines the pursuit of personal glory.

Dean Macey was magnificent. There is no point in anyone becoming a decathlete unless they are prepared to work enormously hard and go through the pain barrier. But perhaps it doesn't apply to sprinters.

THE best team performance of the week came from the Walker Cup golfers, and they're not professionals.

Doubtless a couple of them will now turn pro and find themselves a comfortable niche on the European Tour, in which they can consistently finish 20th and earn £100,000 a year.

Sent out into the sweaty heat of Georgia, personal pride and a burning desire to do well for the team drove them to a magnificent 15-9 victory. Let's hope the Ryder Cup boys can do the same.

PERHAPS it's clutching at straws, but we have been extensively reminded of Ian Botham's wondrous deeds at Headingley 20 years ago.

So how do we celebrate this feat? By dropping the only man remotely capable of emulating Botham on the England stage, Craig White, just when he has run into form.

White has been pretty dreadful in the Ashes series, but so was Botham prior to Headingley, 1981.

Of the latest batch to be touted as Botham's successor, Andrew Flintoff is caught up in the dreadful Lancashire malaise, while Ben Hollioake has yet to make a century in the county championship five years after his debut.

Prior to the Ashes battle, White had been central to England's recent success. You wouldn't see the Aussies leaving out a key player after three lean Tests. Look at the faith they showed in Mark Waugh, and he hasn't let them down.

WE'LL all be hoping for a result tomorrow when the game of two halves gets into full swing. At the end of the day at least the boy Hargreaves doesn't have such a daft haircut as last season on his arrival in the England squad.

Good, old-fashioned English name, Hargreaves. He ought to be playing for Bolton or Blackburn, not Bayern. But now it's a game of two haves - the haves and have nots - and the two Lancashire clubs have been up and down like fiddlers' elbows in their efforts to keep pace.

As the Premiership balance sheet emphasises, the clubs with the greatest turnover come out on top.

The frightening thing is that a backwater club like Grimsby, in their efforts to stay in Division One, exceed their own turnover in players' wages.

That's the road to oblivion, which is why George Reynolds was right to impose wage restraint at Darlington.

Let's hope his management team can prove there are better ways to motivate professional sportsmen than by offering them fat salaries.

AFTER the brickbat for the relay men, my bouquet of the week goes to the admirable Paula Radcliffe.

Although she just missed a medal yet again, I don't believe for a minute there is any self-pity in her stance against drugs cheats. It's just another sign of her bravery and she deserves full credit and support