DRUGS-CHEAT sprinter Dwain Chambers' dream of competing at next month's Olympic Games rests in the hands of a High Court judge today.
Mr Justice Mackay will decide whether or not to grant an order to suspend temporarily a lifetime ban on competing at the Olympics.
The ban was imposed by the British Olympic Association (BOA) because of his self-confessed past use of performance-e
nhancing drugs.
The judge spent yesterday listening to conflicting arguments over the athlete's attempt to win an injunction suspending the by-law before a full trial of the issues in March next year.
Chambers, 30, served a two-year suspension for using the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).
Jonathan Crystal, representing Chambers, said the BOA by-law imposing a lifetime Olympic ban was unfair, contrary to competition law and an unreasonable restraint on trade.
He also said banning the athlete could deprive Britain of its best chance of winning a medal in the 100m in Beijing next month. "He represents our best chance of a podium finish," Mr Crystal said.
"There would be no restriction to his selection for any other nation, save possibly Denmark and China."
Chambers has already qualified to compete in the Olympic team after winning the 100m at the Olympic athletics trials in Birmingham last Saturday and setting his best time of the year, of ten seconds.
Mr Crystal said: "It can't be better put than how the man in the street would put it. If you have done your time, you are entitled to move on. But the BOA is saying, you have done your time, but you can't compete."
David Pannick, QC, representing the BOA, said there was no campaign against Chambers, but, as a self-confessed drugs cheat, the athlete was not a good example for Britain's next sports generation and the court should not force the BOA to pick him.
He added: "(Chambers] cannot show that sportsmen and women are significantly restrained in their trade by the by-law, which only concerns eligibility for an amateur event, which takes place once every four years and for which there is no prize money."
The full article contains 361 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
