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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, if you’re spending a relaxing Sunday morning spare a thought for Team GB. With just over two months to go to the start of the Olympics, you can bet that Britain’s fastest and fittest are training hard right now. Joining me from East Sussex is the man pushing them to limit, the Conservative peer and former Olympic coxswain and now Chairman of the British Olympic Association, it is of course Lord Moynihan, a very good morning to you. I’m sure that our athletes and competitors need no motivation to stick to the task in hand, what they do need of course is monetary support and I know a lot of it is coming from the BOA. Is it true that these Olympics could virtually bankrupt the organisation?

LORD MOYNIHAN: No, we’ve got a strong balance sheet to be able to support the athletes through these Games. We are absolutely confident that the position with regard to the British Olympic Association, making sure that no stone is left unturned to back them can be fully financed, absolute confidence on that front.

DM: Okay, give us a sense of what you are putting in.

LM: Well what we’ve done is we have got monies coming from different sources so for example the Lottery above all is the major source of funding for our athletes and over a six year period it’s not been far short of a hundred million a year going towards the development of high performance sport and that’s been really essential in getting all the 26 Olympic and Paralympic sports ready for the Games. In addition to that, the British Olympic Association go out and make sure there is strong funding during the Games in addition to the lottery money and that money really makes sure that the last step, we’re coming round the final bend and we’re in sight of the start or the finish and the net result of that is that we need to make sure that they are financed, that we support the coaches, support the athletes, right the way through their time in the Olympic village.

DM: Just give me your take, and I don't know if we ever will get to a definitive answer on this, the spat, the BOA spat – and perhaps it’s more than a spat – with the World Anti-Doping Agency and that case you lost at the Court for Arbitration on Sport about you wanting to ban athletes who served their two year bans from the Olympics. Now WADA has said that the BOA has been hysterical and inaccurate in its public statements in response to that decision.

LM: We were all very surprised at the British Olympic Association to read those comments because obviously both of them are inaccurate. I mean what was at stake here was the right of the national Olympic committee, the British Olympic Association, to select those athletes we thought were right for Team GB and what we have decided on behalf of the athletes. It is the athletes voice who we were reflecting, was that those who have knowingly cheated clean athletes out of selection through taking drugs should not be part of Team GB. That was our very strong position and they took a different view. They said it doesn’t matter how serious the offence, if it is a first offence and someone has knowingly cheated taking a whole cocktail of drugs to cheat a clean athlete out of selection, then a two year ban and probably never missing a Games, depending on timing, was a sufficient sanction. We disagreed, the court found that by applying more than two years we were applying a double sanction and therefore we lost. It is a great pity because over 95% of British athletes from Games, after Games, after Games, have said stand firm against cheating in sport, stand firm against those who knowingly take drugs. We did that, we went right the way through to the courts and we didn’t win. What this means now of course is that we need to work with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee to make sure that the voice of the athletes is heard in the future, so whilst this is the position for London we hope that by the time we get to Rio we will be absolutely clear that a minimum of four years and one Games ban adequately reflects the seriousness of the crime.

DM: But in the meantime, if their sports select them for the Olympics, will you cheer on those Britons who have been named who may be selected, those who have served bans, may be selected for these Olympics?

LM: Yes, we’ve been very clear indeed that if we lost this case and there were athletes who came through the system for selection and who were selected, they would get absolutely equal treatment, Dermot, with any other athlete on the team. It is really important that if you are eligible for selection and you make it through, we back those athletes and we give them the support right the way through on the same basis as any other athlete in the team. We have now selected 101 athletes by today, there will be 550 on the British team by the time we get to the opening ceremony and it really is important for team morale, for making sure that the performance of every athlete is the best they can be, that they get equal treatment and equal support.

DM: And just briefly, we started this interview talking about money, let’s end it about that, the commercialisation of the Olympic torch, those that have carried their torch being free to put them on eBay, a bit soon, and this cavalcade of commercial vehicles following, well leading the torch around.

LM: Yes, my view, and I can’t wait to be carrying the torch myself when I get up back to our home city of Leeds, is just an inspirational moment for anybody associated with the Games, for some of the young aspiring athletes, for some of our great names like Duncan Goodhew today, you know, they don’t think about the commercialisation. This is an opportunity to share in the Olympic spirit, to be part of the Games. It is the most extraordinarily strong affiliation to the Olympic movement and I was out there in Olympia recently when the flame was lit. You know, it’s really moving and it was fantastic hearing that the Games were coming to London. Now the torch is here, you saw Ben Ainslie having just come off the water, proving himself the best the world and sharing in that spirit, it’s not about commercialisation.

DM: Okay, Lord Moynihan, thank you very much indeed. Moynihan on Murnaghan.