Great Britain's most decorated female Olympian Katherine Grainger said there is a battle to "save sport's soul" amidst recent doping scandals.

The image of sport has been tainted in the aftermath of a succession of doping scandals and Grainger, in her role of chair of UK Sport, said everyone is fighting to restore its reputation.

The five-time Olympic medallist was speaking at the Aberdeen Youth Games Festival of Sport where she has held the position of ambassador since its launch in 2013

On the subject of doping, she said: "I think everyone I know who works in sport does it because they love sport and they believe in it and want to keep it as pure and as good as it can be.

"Sport does have it's challenges whether it's doping or different forms of cheating or whether it's financial.

"Basically, there's a battle on to save sport's soul to put a fine point on it. People watching top level sport want to believe it.

"They want to believe it's credible and its real that they're watching.

"You want people to come in because its a great thing to do, not because there's doubts, grey areas, or shadows to it.

"I think there's some brilliant people working on it, Anti Doping as well, and we need to keep fighting until we win because you never want to let that slide."

Grainger, who has been in her new role for just under a year, said that whilst her new job has been challenging she's adjusting just fine.

"It was my first real job out of being an athlete so I wasn't sure what to expect.

"I'm incredibly lucky as I enjoy what I do.

"Sport going forwards is more and more successful in this country and that's due to a great investment from the national lottery primarily.

"When more and more people want to be involved and be successful the challenge is how do you keep that going when there's a limited amount of money to go around.

"Also making sure that the impact that the great successes we see at Olympic and Paralympic level filter all the way through to grassroots."

The 42-year-old won the last of her Olympic medals in Rio in 2016 and although she doesn't race competitively anymore she says she hasn't given up the sport she loves.

She added: "I do miss rowing but I was back in a boat a few days ago so I still dabble.

"I'm lucky I did 20 years of international sport but I left still loving it so I still enjoy going back to it"