Boa Drugs By-law Not ‘rock Solid’
Despite Dwain Chambers’ failure to overturn the British Olympic Association’s anti-doping by-law, the regulation is still not ‘rock solid’ according to the chairman of UK Athletics.
Chambers lost his High Court bid to lift his Olympic ban for failing a drugs test because the judge felt he did not make a convincing enough case.
However UK Athletics chief Ed Warner said the judge did not rule on the by-law’s legality.
He commented: ‘I don’t think anyone could say with certainty that, under English law, it will be rock solid for ever. There might have been different results and outcomes had the timetable been different.
‘In hindsight, maybe Dwain Chambers was poorly advised, waiting until he had secured the qualifying time to then bring his case, which compressed it into a very short timeframe.
‘It isn’t a black and white situation. If the issue gets re-opened in the future, it will undoubtedly take up a lot of the BOA’s time all over again, but in a different way. UK Athletics values the by-law very highly, but a court of law is different to the opinion of a sport’s governing body.’
The BOA will not pick any athletes who fail drugs tests for British Olympic teams and did not want to select Chambers to run in Beijing because he failed a test in 2003.
Having achieved the 100m qualifying time, the sprinter brought his case just two days before the BOA had to make its final team selection for the Games, which begin on 8th August.
