BOA Ready for Chambers Challenge

The British Olympic Association has said it would "vigorously defend" any legal challenge by Dwain Chambers to their ruling which prevents drug cheats from competing at any future Olympics.

Chambers' hopes of competing at the Olympics had been raised after the former head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada), Dick Pound, claimed that the rule that prevents Chambers from competing at the Games is not legally watertight.

Pound had been adamant that the BOA bylaw that bans drugs cheats from competing for Team GB did not comply with Wada legislation. Chambers, who failed a drugs test in 2003, is considering a legal challenge to the law that will stop him from representing Great Britain at any future Games. And Pound, who stood down in November, admitted the legality of the BOA's ruling could well be tenuous.

"As a matter of law, I think the BOA would be on pretty shaky ground," said the 65-year-old Pound. "If the BOA sought to deny me a place in the 2008 Olympic team on the basis solely of my earlier drugs offense, I would say that they don't have the power to do that.

"If you serve the penalty that was deemed appropriate - for whatever the offense was - you are entitled to be reintegrated into society. I've always felt it was fairly clear what the outcome [of a challenge] would be."

However, the BOA insists it would launch a fierce defence of the bylaw if Chambers did indeed choose to mount a challenge. A BOA spokesman outlined the four main points surrounding the Chambers issue.

He said: "First, as it stands Dwain Chambers is ineligible for selection for Team GB because he has committed a serious doping offense. Secondly, he is eligible to appeal if he wishes to and there are three grounds on which he could appeal. That the doping offense was minor, [there was] a finding of no fault or negligence on his part or there are significant mitigating circumstances in relation to the doping offense. Thirdly, we have not received any appeal from him. And finally, we will vigorously defend any case that comes to us which is taking on our anti-doping by-law."

By-law 25 was introduced in 1992, when the then chairman Sir Arthur Gold decided Britain should lead the way in the fight against doping. There have been 26 successful appeals against the ban over the last 16 years - the last being that of the 400m world champion Christine Ohuruogu - but nobody has challenged the actual legality of the rule in the courts.

Chambers returned from his ban in 2005 and was part of the victorious 4x100m squad at the European Championships before attempting, and failing, to forge a career in American Football. He then made another return to the track and this weekend will represent Great Britain in the 60m at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia.

However, British bosses did not want to choose the former world junior 100m record holder but his dominance at the trials in Sheffield last month forced the selectors' hands. Pound, a practicing lawyer and former vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, sympathizes with the view that a stand must be taken against doping but is adamant there must be a firm legal basis.

"The BOA is a signatory to Wada's code - those are the rules that govern doping infractions - and the sanction for a first offense is a two-year suspension," he said. "Chambers has served his ban and I think, depending on your view of criminal justice, if you serve the penalty that was deemed appropriate - for whatever the offense was - you are entitled to be reintegrated into society.

"The additional penalty of never representing Britain again can be seen as a sanction that is over and above what's in the code."

The BOA will not rescind their ban for Chambers - his offense does not meet any of the by-law's grounds for clemency - and an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport is unlikely as his case would not be heard until after the Olympics. This means Chambers' only realistic route is to take the more expensive but far speedier option of going to the High Court.