Loads of controversy at the moment about this athlete - trying to return from a drugs ban to represent GB. Uk athletics are desperately trying to find a clause to stop them having to select him but his legal team are all over it.
He ran this weekend in Sheffield and comfortably beat the rest of the field thus assuring himself of a place at the world championships unless UKA can wriggle out of it.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? My opinion is that he has served his time and should be allowed to try again. It is obvious he is qualified to do so and I think it is unfair if he is not able to put the mistake in the past.

I don't think that's strictly speaking the problem with Chambers. he quit athletics to try to play American football well after he came back from his drugs ban. For that reason UK athletics removed him from their out-of-competition testing system. He's now attempting to return to competition having not been tested for drugs for the past year and UK athletics are trying to stop him from competing because of that :shrug:

Athletics is my first love when it comes to sport. I have been hooked since the 2004 Olympic Games and currently write for a nationwide athletics magazine but drug cheats are ruining the sport.

I am strongly against drug cheats returning to sport. If someone was convicted of bank fraud, you wouldn't employ them in a bank again, so why shouldn't the same go for sport? After stupidly putting my trust in Marion Jones' word, when she said that she was clean, I really can't be bothered to support an ex-drugs cheat on the promise of their word. It's not worth it.

I hate the fact that the media only cover an athletics story if there is some drugs speculation (unless Paula Radcliffe is running - my idol!). The BBC spent the first 20 minutes talking about Dwain during their coverage, the four news-flashes on Setanta Sports News were about the saga and he's been in the Telegraph for the past three days. Nobody cares about the fact that Susanna Kallur broke the 60m hurdles world-record (breaking a convicted drug cheats WR), nobody cares about Yelena Soboleva's 1500m WR. All the attention is on Chambers. The only reason he's back in the sport is because he couldn't make it in American football. He said last year that it's impossible for a clean athlete to win an Olympic gold medal without drugs (well Jonathan Edwards, Denise Lewis, Kelly Holmes, Sally Gunnell etc have done it cleanly) and he just brings so much bad press to my favourite sport. I was disgusted that the crowd were cheering him and he essentially got the loudest cheer of the champs and I wish his competitors would make a stand - the only athlete to have done so is (well, ex-athlete) is Dave Bedford, who wanted the crowd to boo.

I'm going to the World Indoor Championships in Valencia in March and I will not be happy if Mr. Chambers is competing.

try being a cycling fan Nevets!!! :nope:

There are certain laws about restriction of trade or something like that, which means you can't ban sports people for life if they get caught cheating :shrug: i would agree with you about Chambers - the fact that he's not been on the drug-testing roster for the last year and i think they said he hasn't been tested by UK athletics in 18 months is fairly worrying, and if he competes it kind of makes a mockery of all of their drug testing procedures. I hope they close the loop-hole in their by-laws because of this.

unfortunately, I've learnt through following cycling for the last 15 years that you can never trust a sports person who declares that they are clean and never took drugs and all the rest of it :shrug: i'm a very cynical person....... :P

You can ban athletes for life after a 2nd time offence. I'm disgusting Justin Gatlin got away without a lifetime so the most recent high-class athlete to have been given a lifetime ban was Irina Korzhanenko (who won the shot put gold medal at the Olympic Games in 2004, but then tested +ive again). :angry: :rolleyes:

I do feel sorry for cycling fans. My friend has been a lifelong cycling fan but his interest is waning after all of the recent crap.

I enjoy track cycling (I think Chris Hoy is amazing) but whenever I try and sit down to watch the Tour de France, I can NEVER understand it! ;)

I'm off to the world track championships in March so I should get to see Hoy in action :yahoo: i love track cycling, but i've got a bit fed up with road cycling - just 'cos of all the drugs stuff. It's kind of obvious to see these days who is doping and who isn't, so it kind of ruins the whole thing.

My thing with the dopers is that if they are really sorry and really repent they need to start naming names. Say who got them the drugs, say which coaches encourage drug taking, say which companies are supplying, and most importantly, tell the authorities how they got away with it. Look at Jones - the woman took steroids whilst competing and never failed a drugs tests - how did she do it??? What's the secret? Is there a masking agent, does it leave the body after a period of time? If they start talking then I have a bit more respect for them :shrug:

It's official, he's been named in the squad:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/7240294.stm

If they hadn't done so, i'm sure Lawyers(vultures) R us would have been around!

Have to say the right result for me. I agree with Tessa Sanderson, let's concentrate on the action, this has got far too much attention and deflected from the actual sports action. I really hope he can prove himself now.

i think the right decision was made simpy for legal reasons, but i really don't think having Chambers competing is particularly good for UK athletics. He then served his two year ban, and came back to the sport in 2006, which is fine. However, he then left the sport, quite publicly said that the scientists would always be ahead of the testers and that he took the drugs assuming he would not be caught. He also insinuated that it would be tough to win an Olympic medal without taking drugs. Rumours abounded during his American football career that he was still in contact with Victor Conte from Balco, which doesn't do much to help assuage fears about his integrity. This man then comes back to athletics, having not been drug tested out-of-competition for 18 months at least, and he's representing the UK at the World Indoor Athletics Championships :nope:

In a sport which is currently experiencing huge problems because of doping scandals, this does very little to prove that the sport has the procedures in place to ensure the integrity of it's competitors :shrug:

This should have been a toughie for me, because I was a Chambers fan...before.

I have ALWAYS believed that drug cheats should be banned for life. We know of the dedication and commitment of athletes, striving to be the best their country can offer and working hard to be the winner on the day at a comp that may have taken 2/3 years to arrive, only to be pipped by a drugs cheat ! I am not saying that Chambers shouldn't be forgiven for his stupid selfish actions, but you should forefeit the chance to ever compete again if caught.

When you have Lord Coe saying he feels 'uncomfortable' about Chambers inclusion in the squad and Kelly Holmes, Roger Black saying it is wrong and bad for the sport to have him take part....then that's enough for me.

think the root of athletes feelings on this stem from the fact that a lot of them believe if you are caught drug taking, then you should be banned for life and the fact that Dwain has been allowed to return, does not rest easy with them.

If we take all the cheats out, then even I have a chance to bring a Gold Medal! :P

I think it is not a question of who cheats and who doesn't but rather who gets caught and who doesn't.

That's how gloomy I see most sports nowadays! :shrug:

I apprecaite people's arguments that former drugs cheats should not be allowed to compete, not sure I agree 100% but that doesn't matter. The problem is that there is no law or rule that can stop it, so I don't see how they can refuse him the right to compete. :shrug: I apprecaite that there seems to be huge loopholes in the regulations that cover this sport, and they appear to need tightening up but until they have been then what can the authorities really do? :shrug:

Anyway I haven't heard what Chambers has said about this or why he is coming back. He must have some balls though because I would be too emabrrassed! On him cheating again, surely he wouldn't be so stupid?

Fair enough I would be all for life bans for these drug cheats if proved 100% (there seem to be a lot of grey areas though where results are incorrect - Greg Rusedski).
However, Dwain received a 2 year ban, NOT a life ban. So he has come back, he is doing nothing wrong (unless we hear later on he's still on drugs which would be pretty stupid).
I know he made some comments which he said have been taken out of context, I can't say much about these as didn't read the full interview.
But the fact remains, he proved himself as the best athlete in the heats so it's not as if someone else better has missed out. He has taken a lot of criticism and to have all of UKA against him and to still be trying takes guts. Good luck to him.
It is a shame all sports are so tarnished these days though. I remember when Justin Gatlin suddenly popped on the scene and I thought wow how good is he. Then look what happened. There must be so many medals awarded then taken away nowadays, it must be so frustrating for any clean athletes.

Off to the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Valencia soon :yahoo:

I leave Plymouth to go to Paddington today, sleep overnight at Heathrow, then fly out to Valencia tomorrow morning!

Wishing team GB the best of luck and also hoping Mozambican legend Maria Mutola can win her 11th world 800m title at the age of 35 :D

hope you have a good time Nevets :hug:

Thank you! I'm really excited now, albeit petrified about everything which could go wrong! This is my first trip abroad by myself!

oh, I'm sure you'll be fine :hug: Mind you, whenever i travel I'm always petirified things will go wrong, i'll be late or whatever and end up being hours early :rolleyes:

Sorry I didn't see thsi earlier. I expect you have gone now, but hope all goes well. :hug: And I didn't knwo Mutaola was still running! She is amazing, I think she trained with Dame Kelly.

And Dwain gets the silver :yahoo: Well done!!!!!

Nevets did you see phillips get his gold? :bow: Was fab, I was v teary!!!! Shame for Chris Tomlinson though, so close to gold too!

I was there although rather annoyingly, the producers didn't show his winning jump on the big screen so I only saw the distance come up on the scoreboard but my grandad recorded the meeting from me.

I'll tell you more about it when I get back from school. Had a brill time although travelling back yesterday was a horror. Left my hotel at 5.55am and got back to Plymouth at 10pm!

hey nevets - glad to hear you had a good time. looking forward to hearing more about it :ok:

Unfortunately, my trip didn't start off too well because on the way from Heathrow to my hotel, the cab charged me £31 for a 10min journey, just because my hotel for the night was an inch outside the M25, due to some company policy or something! However, I didn't take a black cab on my way to Heathrow so it was only a tenner although my glasses fell out of my pocket and I realised about 5sec after I left the taxi and by that time, he had bolted it down the road so I was pretty much as blind as a bat until I met up with one of my friends, who had a spare pair.

The weather in Valencia was divine. It was not too hot (usually 22-25C, although the evenings were on the chilly side) and clear blue skies. Every afternoon, I wandered into the city centre had some lunch such as a paella or a local stew and sat in the shade. I was really in my element but I am in a foul mood now because I was back at school this afternoon, got lumbered up with a load of pointless work and it's raining and windy and I want to go back to Valencia! These are certainly the downsides of weekends and holidays - you feel so damn miserable after they are over! The old town in beautiful, in terms of architecture and there is an old river bed, and has been transformed into a really nice park. Locals, generally, were tremendously friendly and a lot of people spoke English, which is really useful because I speak no Spanish at all!

Great Britain finished 4th in the medal table with one gold and four silver medals (behind Russia, USA and Ethiopia). However, my favourite athlete, Maria Mutola was only 3rd in the 800m behind bloody Tamsyn Lewis :tsk: She was the athlete who was basically responsible for getting the English 4x400m team at the 2006 Commonwealth Games disqualified. Mutola ran tactically absurd - rather like a 10y old schoolgirl. She took the lead and slowed the pace down and then let the whole field come past her. She was trapped on the inside and was 5th at one point on the final lap and was probably finishing the fastest, but was 3rd.

However, her champs record is the best ever for a middle-distance runner, male or female.

Olympic Games
1988 - DNQ, 1992 5th (9th 1500m), 1996 3rd, 2000 1st, 2004 4th
World Champs
1991 4th, 1993 1st, 1995 DQ, 1997 3rd, 1999 2nd, 2001 1st, 2003 1st, 2005 4th, 2007 DNF
World Indoors
1993 1st, 1995 1st 1997 1st, 1999 2nd, 2001 1st, 2003 1st, 2004 1st, 2006 1st, 2008 3rd
World Cup
1992 1st, 1994 1st, 1998 1st, 2002 1st
Commonwealths
1998 1st, 2002 1st, 2006 3rd

Had an amazing time! Off to the European Indoor Champs in Milan next year and the World Outdoor Champs next year too, then I'm off to the World Indoors again in Doha in 2010.

hey nevets :hug: Glad to hear you had a good time, even with the slight travel mishaps :unsure: Did you manage to get any autographs or anything or were you sat too far back?

Lucky you getting to go to all those events :D I'm off to the cycling world champs in two weeks :yahoo: so excited......

Sounds like you had a great time apart from the glasses mishap! Did make me chuckle :P
I thought of you watching the Mutola race, it was a bit of a shambles!
On the last day near the end all the monitors went out or something - don't know if that affected you with the screens there. Also they very nearly went off air before Phillips got his medal! I would have been v annoyed to miss it.

I'm a really sad, athletics fan so I usually hang around for an hour or so for autographs. I would have liked to get photos as well but my camera battery has usually run out by that time but on the last day, I had some battery power left...well, so I thought. I was about to get my photo with Yelena Soboleva (who broke the world 1500m record when winning the gold medal) and Yuliya Fomenko (silver at 1500m) and then my battery goes flat and I was FURIOUS! Yelena Slesarenko was also outside as well (Olympic high jump champ) and I wanted my picture with her as well. I spent the duration of my walk from the stadium to my hotel cursing really loudly under my breath and started swearing to my grandad (not at him though!) and when there was nobody looking, I threw a bit of a tantrum and chucked some coins on the pavement and stamped my feet a bit but I got it out of my system!

I got a few autographs - Valerie Vili (world indoor and outdoor shot put champ), Nelson Evora (world outdoor triple jump champ and world indoor bronze medallist), Vita Palamar (world indoor high jump bronze medallist) and Angela Williams (world 60m champ).

Had BBC World and Eurosport at my hotel so was able to keep up-to-date with the tennis world!

Have a great time Jo! :hug: Are they in Manchester?

:hug: i don't think that's sad at all - i will probably be doing the same in Manchester :blush: and at least you've reminded me to stock up on camera batteries :unsure: you did well to get some autographs though - bet you'll end up swith a great collection over the next couple of years :D

yeah, the cycling is in Manchester - not quite as glamourous as valencia (why i didn't go to them when they were in mallorca last year i don't know :rolleyes: ). but i'm still excited - going to see the pursuit, team pursuit, sprint, teams sprint - all events that the Brits should have a good chance in! :ok:

I'm glad I'm not the only one who stands around for ages after a meeting! Palma is beautiful - I watched quite a bit of the champs last year and I really enjoyed them. Shame Olympic sports aren't shown more on BBC1 and BBC2.

yeah, probably would have been more pleasant to have spent 3 days in Palma than 3 days in Manchester but never mind :unsure: They often do show a bit of the cycling on the BBC now - especially on BBCi, and especially 'cos the brits keep winning things. :P

http://picasaweb.google.com/nevets11/200803Mar

http://picasaweb.google.com/nevets11/World...8ValenciaSetTwo

Here are my snaps from the World Indoors.