Mo Farah having been asked about his omission from the top three in the recent BBC Sports Personality of the Year during his eve of race press conference at Holyrood last weekend, a lively discussion ensued among a group of English journalists immediately afterwards. It is not unusual for those who spend too much time cocooned in any one sport to become a bit precious about their particular favourites and much hypothesis resulted, including the notion, which was by no means dismissed out of hand by those involved in the conversation who clearly did not care who heard what they had to say, that there was a racial element to it.