Chambers Heads for Court - and Beijing

Dwain Chambers is set to appeal against his lifetime ban from the Olympics. He is expected to announce this week that he is heading for the High Court, and aims to run for Britain in Beijing this summer and London in 2012.

The 29-year-old Londoner, in buoyant mood after his silver medal in the World Indoor Championships sprint in Valencia, believes he could even be accepted back by the British Olympic Association without going to court. Chambers sees himself as a serious contender for 100m honors in Beijing in August and said: 'Hopefully we can come to a compromise."

That seems unlikely. Lord Moynihan, chairman of the BOA, said his organization would 'vigorously and unequivocally defend their lifetime ban on drug cheats'. Under BOA rules anyone who has been banned for a drugs offense, as Chambers was in 2003, can never again represent Britain in the Olympics.

There is no appeal open to Chambers, so he is ready to go straight to the High Court. It would be the first legal challenge to the BOA's ban. Chambers and his legal team are due to meet leading barrister Jonathan Crystal, a specialist sports lawyer whose previous clients include Sam Allardyce, Graeme Souness and Stan Collymore, to decide whether to proceed with the case.

Chambers' hopes were given a lift last week when Dick Pound, the former president of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a Canadian lawyer, said he did not believe that the rule could be sustained.

'It's something I've got to really sit down and think about,' Chambers said in an interview with Observer Sport. 'I've just got to make sure that the relevant people are going to present themselves. We're not going to take it on unless we know we can win.'