Time running out for rule change (From Bournemouth Echo)

Time running out for rule change

4:01pm Friday 15th February 2008 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

YOU can't even walk the streets in some towns and cities these days without encountering groups of drug-taking youngsters out to rile and anger innocent, law-abiding people.

And now it appears you can't even watch a little athletics on the box without encountering a drug-taking 29-year-old who, firstly, should have known better and, secondly, should have had the good sense to walk away from the sport in shame.

Dwain Chambers could even walk away now after launching his comeback on the international stage at last week's World Indoor Championship qualifier in Sheffield. But he won't.

Having won the 60m sprint trial ahead of hot-prospect Craig Pickering, Chambers will now get the chance to represent his country in Spain next month - potentially at the expense of the clean-living Pickering, who faces a run-off for the final GB sprint place against Simeon Williamson at the Norwich Union Grand Prix this afternoon.

As expected, all the old favourites have had their say on the Chambers debate, with Dame Kelly Holmes slamming the inclusion of a "cheat" in the Great Britain squad.

Housewives' favourite Roger Black echoed Dame Kelly's thoughts and added that Chambers should be "big enough to put his hands up and say: I need to walk away'."

John Regis and Tessa Sanderson, however, urged the doubters to leave Chambers alone, claiming he had served his ban and deserved a second chance.

Despite the split of opinion, it's hardly surprising that, in a country with a legal system so painfully flawed, UK Athletics rules have allowed Chambers to walk back into his profession and carry on like nothing has happened.

"Oh, well, he's served his time," say the loony brigade.

Easy to say, but they have clearly forgotten that the Olympics is coming to this country in 2012.

And, with the problems we will undoubtedly have building the venues and keeping the costs of these ventures down (Wembley anyone?), the last thing we should be doing is throwing our apparent weight behind a British drugs cheat.

Athletics is a fantastic sport with fantastic people all around it. But it isn't what you might call a huge sport, compared to the way that football and rugby capture the public imagination outside of the main competitions.

We need to be, for want of a more eloquent phrase, bigging ourselves up' to get the excitement levels rising ahead of the Games in four years' time.

Sure, the powers-that-be have made their point after the event, insisting that Chambers should have been stopped from running at the world indoors.

But it's legality that counts and the Belgrave Harrier would have cleaned up if the dispute had found its way into the courtroom.

The rules is the rules, as they say, even though those rules seem to favour someone who took a substance to enhance his performance and then had the arrogance to claim that Olympic gold medals couldn't be won without taking drugs.

Most people of a certain age remember when Ben Johnson romped to a sprint gold medal at Seoul '88, only to be stripped of his title in disgrace after failing a doping test. But he was only banned for two years.

And now, 20 years on, the same thing is still going on - only this time it's British athletes sticking the needles in.

What kind of message does it send to sprinters like Pickering and Williamson, who are the real GB hopes for 2012?

Chambers, drugs or not, is unlikely to be a threat in London as he will be aged in his mid-thirties, but allowing him to run in Spain will hardly fill the likes of 21-year-old Pickering with confidence as they try to build success over the next four years.

Pickering told the Sun newspaper: "It should be a life ban. Why should you be allowed back once you've cheated?"

That kind of attitude and outlook will get Pickering far - if he gets his chance with cheats like Chambers standing in his way.

UK Athletics needs to make examples of people like Chambers NOW - because you can bet your bottom dollar he isn't the only under-par athlete in Britain taking banned substances.

Knowing they only face a potential two-year ban from the sport is hardly a deterrent and the sport's governing body in this country must change the rules THIS YEAR, before the few remaining kids who aren't out on the streets beating up grannies and stabbing middle-aged men, give up on a sport that could offer them a real future.