Governing bodies need to work harder at educating athletes after two Germans and a French competitor fall foul of little-known betting rule.

The three athletes who were busted by the Athletics Integrity Unit this week for betting on team-mates was the first time this has happened in athletics but it also had an air of inevitability.

In recent years there have been regular calls – largely from track fans or influencers on social media – for gambling to be introduced into athletics. It has even been proposed as one of the ideas to improve the sport. Such supporters of the idea no doubt envisage the kind of lively bookmaker stalls that you find trackside at horse or greyhound racing events.

Maybe these gambling enthusiasts will now pause for thought following the news that German discus throwers, Henrik Janssen and Steven Richter, along with French middle-distance runner, Aurore Fleury, have received a ban and fine for betting on fellow athletes.

In a press release headlined "Zero-Tolerance to Betting" the AIU said that "27-year-old Janssen and 22-year-old Richter were handed three-month suspended bans while 32-year-old Fleury received a six-month ban (from September 1, 2025) and was fined €3000 to be donated to charity. All three athletes were charged with violating Integrity Standard 3.3.4 relating to ‘Maintaining Integrity of Competition’ – and they all admitted the violations."

Janssen and Richter were overhead talking about placing relatively small bets on team-mates at their holding camp on the eve of the World Championships in Tokyo last year, whereas Fleury put €2000 on a team-mate, steeplechaser Alice Finot, at the 2024 European Champs in Rome and won €5000.

Not surprisingly the athletes played dumb and claimed they were unaware of the rules against betting. I believe them, too, as the rules relating to gambling in athletics have been buried in World Athletics' rule books for years and, even if you find the relevant paragraphs, they are vague and difficult to understand.

In the above cases, the AIU's "Integrity Guide" wasn't even circulated to athletes by their national governing body despite the governing body having been asked to do so.

In 2007 a leading agent in the sport set up a gambling site called "AthleticBet.com" with swift and inevitable questions raised about a possible conflict of interest, especially as the website offered odds on events his athletes were competing in.

At the time, a World Athletics spokesman said: "We are obviously aware that people involved with the sport have been betting on athletics for decades. What's the difference between going to William Hill and having a bet or doing it like this on a website?"

The venture was short-lived and in recent years the only betting you can find on the sport is usually provided by well-known betting companies ahead of sizeable athletics events such as London Marathon or major summer championships.

I know a number of journalists who not only place regular bets on the sport but they have acted as advisors to large betting companies at peak times such as during the Olympics. I even know a former athletics writer, who sadly died not long ago, who collaborated with a professional gambler and they made a pleasant profit every summer with a system that, among other things, put cold and clinical analysis of statistics ahead of any emotional or patriotic factors.

The topic has popped up several times in the pages of AW over the years and in 2024, for example, I wrote a piece headlined "Gambling on athletics? Don't bet on it" where I talked about how unlikely it was that gambling would be brought into athletics events despite people calling for it to be introduced.

In the article I wrote: "Many fans who urge the sport to embrace it perhaps don’t realise that World Athletics has had a section forbidding gambling in its rule book for many years."

I added: "The current wording says that an "applicable person" (in other words mainly athletes, officials and governing body staff who have signed up to the Athletics Integrity Code of Conduct) will have committed a violation of the integrity standards if they engage in 'any form of Betting related to an Event or Competition in Athletics, including Betting with another Person on the result, progress, outcome, conduct or any other aspect of such an Event or Competition'."

World Athletics rules continued: “This Rule applies to any form of Betting related to an Event or Competition in Athletics, whether or not the Applicable Person is directly participating in the Event or Competition in question, and to any form of Betting related to an Event or Competition in a sport other than Athletics taking place at an International Competition organised by a Major Event Organisation in which the Applicable Person is directly participating.”

I'm not a big gambler but I'm not totally against it either. Largely out of tradition I usually put a bet on the Grand National every 12 months too. Should I dare bet on athletics, though, with my supposedly inside knowledge? As a journalist who covers the No.1 Olympic sport, do I fall in to the "applicable person" category and would I receive a fine or ban?

Or what about, for example, a teenage sprinter from London who has recently made a GB team for an under-20 international championships? Would they be allowed to stick some money on Eilish McColgan or Emile Cairess to win the London Marathon?

To me, the AIU's rules aren’t particularly clear on this. Certainly, the AIU needs to work further on educating athletes about this area.

What's more, you have to feel some sympathy toward Janssen, Richter and Fleury as I doubt they are the first-ever athletes to have placed a bet on their sport. They are, however, the first to be punished for it.