In Nigerian, Christine Ohuruogu's surname means 'fighter'. Never has an athlete been more aptly named.

Yesterday's World Championship-winning performance, in which Ohuruogu overhauled 400m favourite Novlene Williams and held off compatriot Nicola Sanders in a frantic final ten metres, was as gutsy an effort as it is possible to imagine.

Yet it was nothing compared with the drive and commitment the 23-year-old has been forced to display over the last 12 months.

Banned for a year after missing three out-of-competition drugs tests, and repeatedly disappointed by a succession of costly and unsuccessful appeals, Ohuruogu spent the whole of last winter in sporting penury.

Each day, she dragged herself to the running track. Each day, she wondered whether she would ever run professionally again.

Faced with the same situation, many of her contemporaries would have taken the easy way out and called time on a career that, while promising, had rarely looked like being played out at the highest levels.

To lose a year out of any career is difficult to accept, but to sacrifice 12 months for an offence that amounted to little more than an administrative error - Ohuruogu has never tested positive for drugs and vehemently denies that she has ever taken a performance-enhancing substance - must have caused considerable mental and financial pain.

Yet through all the hardship and turmoil, Ohuruogu refused to believe she would never run another professional race.

Calmly and methodically, she worked with her coach, Lloyd Cowan, to devise a training programme that would enable her to peak for this week's World Championships, less than a month after the end of her ban.

At the time, there seemed little chance of the British selectors even picking her for the finals, but after insisting that her penalty would not be held against her, UK athletics chief Dave Collins confirmed that her rehabilitation would begin in Osaka.

It started with a bang as Ohuruogu made it through the early rounds in style, and continued with a flourish as she claimed the world crown in only her fifth race of the year.

It should be complete next month when the British Olympic Association meet to decide whether the Londoner is allowed to compete in next year's Olympics in Beijing. The organisation automatically gives life bans to athletes who commit doping offences, but world triathlon champion Tim Don was recently cleared to compete after missing three drugs tests and the same is likely to happen again.

The BOA cannot indulge in special treatment but, if anyone deserves a second chance, it is surely an athlete as dedicated and determined as Ohuruogu.

While some members of the British team refuse to go that extra yard in search of victory, she has plunged the depths of despair only to return fitter and stronger for the experience. Her response to hardship has truly befitted a champion.

Ohuruogu has made the most of her second chance, and it is only to be hoped that footballer Lee Hughes is allowed an opportunity to do the same.

Hughes has signed an £80,000-a-year contract with Oldham Athletic after serving a three-year prison sentence for causing death by dangerous driving.

Inevitably, news of his impending return to professional football has caused controversy, with the relatives of Douglas and Maureen Graham - the husband was killed when Hughes crashed his Mercedes into the car they were travelling in - describing a bitter sense of injustice at his release.

Clearly, Hughes had to be punished for his crime. But that punishment should not be indefinite and, once it has been served, the 31-year-old should be free to resume his career in any way he likes.

The fact that he will be speaking to schoolchildren and apprentice footballers about the dangers of fast cars and drink driving suggests that he feels genuine contrition for what he has done.

But, in a sense, that is by the by. Hughes has served his punishment and deserves the same opportunities as any other footballer looking to further their career.

When Len Shackleton penned his autobiography at the end of his career, he famously included a chapter entitled "The Average Director's Knowledge of Football". The rest of the page was left blank.

Times might change, but the wisdom of Shackleton's statement continues to ring true. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is obviously an intelligent man, given that he has a first-class degree from Cambridge University, but when it comes to running a football club, he has proved to be incompetent in the extreme.

Had Levy been the head of a leading London business when he attempted to remove his manager, only to be forced into a humiliating retreat when his preferred choice of replacement snubbed his advances, he would surely have been looking for alternative employment himself.