But matters outside the ropes got so bad UK Sport was forced to take emergency control of the Sheffield-based elite programme in late June.
Pippa Collett, Sponsorship Consulting's managing director, said that the media furor was not necessarily a bad thing for the sport.
Team Bad Company figures that despite sport fishing's image as a wealthy man's sport, the right promotional strategy will lure fans of different income levels.
If the murkiness around this were limited to the internal workings of this particular sport, that would be bad enough.
By his own admission, Andy has not been at his best recently, but you don't become a bad player overnight and tennis is a sport in which fortunes can change rapidly.
She has been chief minister of that state for nearly a year, and makes a sport of blocking any reforms she considers bad for the poor.
Last week, the Swiss Football Association told BBC Sport that Djourou's injury was not as bad as first feared and that the player was confident of returning to action this month.
This is mainly a legacy of Soviet mistrust, coupled with the very bad reputation that charities connected to military ex-servicemen, the Russian Orthodox church and sport gained in the immediate post-Soviet period.
"Our form hasn't been bad in the league but our results have been terrible, " captain David Lyons told BBC Sport.
Those of us who've been at BBC Sport through a number of these contractual upheavals know that nothing's ever as bad, or as good, as it first appears.
The mild climes were bad for apparel stores and sporting-goods purveyors, which were stuck with boots, coats and snow-sport equipment.
应用推荐