Top pair back Chambers ruling

8:04am Saturday 19th July 2008

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GWENT-based athletics heroes Lyn Davies and Darren Campbell have backed the court ruling to throw out Dwain Chambers' bid to run in next month's Beijing Games.

Olympic legend Davies said athletics could now concentrate on "winning medals".

And his verdict was backed by one of the Gwent men who lost out in a big way by the drugs cheating of Chambers, Marshfield-based Darren Campbell.

Davies, the 1968 long jump gold medallist, who lives on the outskirts of Newport and is president of governing body UK Athletics, has been an outspoken critic of Chambers' attempts to return to the sport after he tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug THG in 2003 and was subsequently banned.

The consequences of that ban, which, under British Olympic Association rules, means the 30-year-old could never again compete at any future Games, cost Newport's Christian Malcolm and Campbell their 2002 European Championships gold medals.

Chambers was a member of the winning 4x100m relay and admittted taking drugs 18 months before he was caught. Therefore, all the events he took part in - including that European Championships relay win - were scrubbed out and medals had to be returned.

Chambers' win at the Olympic Trials in Birmingham last Saturday and the fact that he had the qualifying A standard time, would normally, like Malcolm, who did the same in the 200m, guarantee a plane ticket to Beijing.

Malcolm has that ticket after the Newport 29-year-old star was named in the team on Monday.

However, following a High Court ruling by Mr Justice Mackay yesterday that the BOA by-law banning him for life from the Olympics must stand, Davies agreed it was time to put the episode that has blighted athletics for months behind them.

He said: "Athletics has been under seige because, with Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin and Dwain Chambers, the sport now is under this perception by the public that, if anyone sets a record and does really well, it will be suspicious.

"The sport cannot have this because it is a sport about young people being honest, with honest endeavour, and not cheating.

"UK Athletics supported the BOA stance 100 per cent and we are all behind the by-law. We would have accepted the court ruling if it had gone against us and it's good for the sport.

"Now the focus can move onto our best medal prospects at the Olympic Games rather than Dwain Chambers."

And Campbell, now a successful businessman and who will be working for the BBC in Beijing next month, added: "I just think it's important for the sport and not whether I'm personally glad of this or not.

"It's good for the sport and even more so as a deterrent to sports people who may look to use banned supplements."

Chambers has the right to appeal against the ban but, with time running out before teams have to be confirmed to the International Olympic Committee for Beijing, this really should now be the end of the matter.