THERE have been so many references to Dwain Chambers's "drugs cocktail" that it is now difficult to think of the British sprinter without conjuring up a mental image of a soigne dude sidling up to the bar and twirling his bow-tie. "Tetrahydrogestrinone, make it a double, with a shot of nandrolone and maybe a dash of that EPO stuff, on the rocks, shaken not stirred."
On Saturday, Chambers' win in the final of the British Olympic trial proved that he was the best British sprinter on current form, with a time of a flat ten seconds that suggested he is the only Briton with a chance, albeit remote, of finishing
on the podium in Beijing next month.
That chance now rests in the unlikely hands of Lord Justice Colin Mackay, who hears Chambers' legal team on Wednesday as they seek to overturn the British Olympic Association by-law that prevents any athlete convicted of a drugs offence from representing their country in the Olympic Games.
There is always something profoundly wrong about sporting issues being decided in the High Court. Regardless of the careers and money involved, the cases always distil down to a squabble about a game, and the High Court should be concerning itself with more pressing issues. When the law can intervene in a sporting body's decision-making process, it also threatens all kinds of absurd precedents.
Depending on your subjective standpoint, the BOA's by-law is either a noble attempt to stick a finger in the crumbling dyke of clean competition for a few more years in some fond preservation of the Olympic ideal, or a piece of hypocritical self-righteousness. Either way it is clearly indicated as one of their criteria for Olympic selection.
Chambers' gang of lawyers is essentially attempting to prove that an individual's right to the glory, publicity and commercial opportunities of an Olympiad outweigh a national body's right to select the team they want to represent Britain. If they are successful, the High Court decision could spill over into other sports, where financial rewards for international exposure are far more significant than in athletics.
Facetious examples are not difficult to envisage. If Kris Boyd scores more goals in the league than Kenny Miller, could he take the SFA to court if it ignores the empirical evidence and leaves him on the bench for a Scotland international? More likely to attract litigation is the once-gentlemanly arena of cricket. The Sandford millions on offer for England players who will be chosen for the Twenty20 match in the West Indies have already skewed the sport's priorities. With vastly more lucrative rewards for a couple of hours' action than for an entire Test series, England players who feel they have been unfairly denied a ticket for the gravy train may not just whinge to the papers, but brief their solicitors.
Chambers is pursuing his case in the knowledge that he can hardly be any more unpopular than he already is. Victory on Saturday was greeted with a cry of "you're a cheat Chambers", and although it didn't come from the third-placed runner Craig Pickering, he has already indicated that he shares the sentiment (Pickering would be the one to lose his Olympic place if Chambers is selected). Membership of the Olympic team under those circumstances would be such a bitter inclusion that Chambers would never be forgiven for souring the whole Beijing experience.
There is only one escape route from what looks like a no-win situation for everybody, and it is suitably cynical and far-fetched. If Chambers were to go to the Olympics and win gold, a substantial proportion of the nation, and even some fellow athletes, would forgive and forget. As that would mean defeating Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and the present world-record phenomenon Usain Bolt, Chambers would need to discover a considerably more powerful cocktail than his last tipple.
The full article contains 666 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
