Dwain Chambers not on GB team ....Hooray.Does that mean there are no drug fuelled GB athletes - No
The best news for athletes everywhere for some time. 30 year old sprinter and failed wannabe RL star, Dwain Chambers failed to have a lifetime suspension from the Olympics lifted by a London judge today. He won't be allowed to run for Britain in Peking next month - unless he successfully appeals the ruling.
Pity the ruling came from a Judge and not the pompous blazers who run sport today.
Chambers, was banned from the Olympic team in 2003 for taking steroids. He went to the High Court in London after winning the 100 metres in last weekend's trials in Birmingham. The top two finishers there are usually selected for the U.K. Olympic team.
Chambers wanted an injunction to be able to run and Justice Colin Mackay and the court was ``not convinced'' by his arguments. The ruling can be appealed. Jonathan Crystal, Chambers's lawyer, didn't comment as he left the court.
Chambers was the first athlete to be banned for testing positive for THG, the designer steroid distributed by Balco, the California-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative that has been at the center of a U.S. probe of drug use by top athletes.
He was also stripped of his 2002 European 100-meter title and had his British 100-meter record of 9.86 seconds annulled.
Victor Conte , the Balco guru chemist revealed that Chambers, who tested positive for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in 2003, actually took seven banned substances. The others were a testo-sterone/epitestosterone cream, EPO, insulin, human growth hormone, modafinil and liothyronine. Conte, who served a jail term for distributing steroids in 2005, previously limited himself to saying he gave Chambers “the full enchilada” of drugs.
3 comments:
I tend to agree with donovan bailey on the colour television this morning, of he's been cllean for a couple of years, he should be allowed to compete.
He only runs in a straight line for ten seconds, for fuck's sake
There are 3 possible views
1. Alow him carte blanche for all future event.
2. Refuse him ditto
3. Don't give a FF, atheletics is just a hyper promoted form of the entertainment industry.
The best is to refuse in the vain hope that such exemplary treatment will re-inforce that fact that there are clear rules for competition and they shoudl be obeyed.
Whether the rules should change is another debate (or argument).Yes , he only rubs ten seconds, Beth Tweddle Euro Champ gymnast)does routines of huge intensity on a range of equipment over days - training almost continuously for years.
Swimmers commit their youth to ceaseless training - etc etc. the activities of BALCO (not forgetting E Germany etc)and their very willing customers has distorted the framework of their competition.
Where are the US ladies runners ? - the absurd assisted records of Flo-Jo, Marion Jones stand - same with the men. Heike Dachsler, SDtasi spy and drug user's youth records still stand and she is the German IAAF representative - for the World Games in Berlin next year.
World events can go 2 ways. A truly drug free culture - or become a TV spectacular (which many say it is) overtaken by the demands of the networks and the big sponsors. This leads to the trawling of kids, yes, kids,for football, gymnastics, field athletics, to be groomed , their gullible parents to accede to what is verging on child abuse.
Many years ago Anta Lonsborough (now 67)on BBC4 Women's Hour was interviewed - she had daughters and the intervier assumed they would be competitive swimmers.
In the 1958 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Cardiff she won Gold in the 220 Yards Breaststroke.
19 years old - 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, on 27 August 1960, she won Gold in the 200m breaststroke in 02:49.5 ahead of West Germany's Witrud Urselmann (02:50.0), setting a new world record time.
Five world records and seven gold medals followed until her retirement in 1964. At one time she held the Olympic Gold Medal, Empire and European medals at the same time.
Anita pointed to the trophies / medals on the sideboard. "Look at those she said, "that was my youth".. "I wouldn't steal it from anybody"
As a separate but not wholly unconnected case there is someone known to us who was a GB swimmer who testified in a dreadful case of a coach repeatedly assualting many GB swimmers and who testified against him - no anonymous witnesses then.
He went to prison, disgraced, but all his victims have had problems.
That is why the result in the chambers case is so good, not made by the sports administrators , eventually by a judge.
Let us hope it will insert some backbone and remove the other drug cheats in the GB team.
fair enough, m'lud.
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