D-Day for Chambers

Europe’s number one sprinter Dwain Chambers fights for his career today when a UK Athletics independent disciplinary committee rules on his positive drug test.

The European 100 metres champion failed a test for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) last August.

Chambers insists he has never used drugs and has continued to protest his innocence.

But the three-strong committee meeting in London will today appraise the evidence and decide whether he has any mitigating circumstances to avoid a two-year mandatory suspension.

The situation looks grim for the Londoner.

International Association of Athletics Federation rules specify if any banned substances are found in the body of any athlete, it is their responsibility.

The fact that Chambers’ coach Remy Korchemny was last week indicted by a US court accused of illegally supplying athletes with drugs is unlikely to cut any ice with the disciplinary panel.

UK Athletics issued a statement on Friday that the THG drugs scandal being investigated in the United States had no relevance in respect of the charges laid against Chambers.

Korchemny also acted as nutritionist to the Londoner and on his advice Chambers used supplements supplied by Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), whose head Victor Conte faces criminal charges alongside the coach and two others.

If Chambers is found guilty he will be the third British European champion in five years to have fallen foul of the doping laws.

In December 1998, 200-metre runner Doug Walker tested positive for nandrolone, a substance about which little was known at the time.

Almost immediately after making his comeback when racing indoors, 1992 Olympic 100-metre champion Linford Christie produced a nandrolone sample almost 100% above the legal level.

Chambers’ hearing is scheduled to last two days and both the IAAF and the runner’s defence team have the right to refer the result – whatever the committee’s decision is – to the Court of Arbitration in Sport if they are not happy with the findings.