ARMED with television's all-seeing tentacles, every sport has the ability to provide us with a regular supply of nostalgic material.

Yet another chapter in sporting nostalgia will close on Friday when a major Athletics meeting will be held for the final time at Oslo's Bislett Stadium.

Bislett is a special stadium - one of those places where atmosphere is generated as a result of the noisy packed house being close to the competitors.

Those of us over the age of 35 will recall a golden period for British athletics which seemed to reach its pinnacle every summer at what was then the Bislett Games.

In the early 1980s, the location became synonymous with world records, from Steve Ovett's 1,500m in 1980 and Sebastian Coe setting a new 1,000m record in 1981, to Steve Cram's 3:46.32 in 1985, a 1,500m world record which stood for eight years.

But 13 years after Cram's world record, the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) decided the time had come for the sport to officially become a business: the Golden League was born.

However, the manager of the then world sprint champion, Maurice Green, said that the grand prix events actually cost his client money and pulled him from a race in Zurich claiming the $1 million bonus on offer was 'stupid'.

Such arrogance merely accelerated a trend that witnessed (the Olympic Games apart) more spectators and television audiences turning away from athletics.

The exodus was given added impetus in 2001 when the IAAF changed its name. While retaining the same initials, the word 'amateur' was dropped: the International Association of Athletics Federations had arrived.

In fairness, the IAAF set out to infuse athletics with commercial credibility following years of surreptitious, under-the-table payments to athletes.

It laid down strict guidelines for venues hoping to host Golden League meetings including guarantees regarding financial security and television coverage.

The federation sold the Golden League marketing rights for $200m while venues began to be chosen according to their ability to generate a sufficient commercial return.

Yet despite the cash that has been generated by the IAAF, its prize money structure is such that the world's leading athletes do not earn vast sums from competition.

According to the US-based 'Track Profile', the leading male earner in 2002 was Hicham El Guerrouj, who collected a tidy sum of £275,000.

Considering the television exposure still accorded to athletes, this is not an outrageous sum of money. To complement this, product endorsements and sponsorship deals provide a considerable boost to an athlete's income. Which brings us conveniently onto the subject of drug taking.

The potentially attractive financial combination of prize money and endorsement contracts creates a sometimes powerful incentive to break the rules.

While the sporting public can accept discreet payments in brown paper envelopes, they cannot accept blatant cheating. The result has been a further erosion of support for athletics.