No way back for Chambers

Banned UK sprinter Dwain Chambers has no intention of returning to athletics.

European 100metres record holder Chambers tested positive for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) in an out-of-competition sampling in August. The B sample also tested positive, and he was banned for two years from November.

His appeal was rejected in February, and he was given the right of appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. But, according to his management company, he may not even take up that option.

Jonathan Barnett, chairman of The Stellar Group, told the Financial Times that he could not “see a way back into athletics” for Chambers.

“He’s sickened by the whole thing,” Barnett said. “We are also sickened by what’s happened to him. He’s disillusioned. At the moment he has no intention of coming back into athletics.”

Barnett confirmed a switch to American Football was one possibility for Chambers.

“Where he goes in the end, I don’t know, the NFL is a possibility,” he said.

“There are a few other things we are looking at, personality-wise, TV-wise. He needs to get away for a while, basically lie on a beach, and figure out what to do.

“It’s hard if a man has spent most of his life concentrating on being an athlete, so it is really hard to take in what he will do. What is for sure, we are going to stand by him.”

Barnett feels the International Association of Athletics Federations, the sport’s governing body, could play a more active role in the fight against drugs.

“It’s something Dwain’s going to have to live with,” he said. “Maybe he will have to go to somewhere like America and rebuild his life.

“But one thing I am convinced of: he didn’t know he took it [THG]. I won’t condone anyone who takes drugs, they are finished with me, but I have stuck by him and I still will. I believe he is totally innocent.

“This law, [that] if it is in your body you are guilty, is unbelievable. It is like saying a girl goes into a bar, and somebody puts date-rape pills in her drink, then she is guilty.

“I am tempted to send everything that my athletes take to the IAAF, and ask them to test it, and send it back sealed.

“We will do it for 70 athletes every week, and pay for the testing. They have got to take some responsibility themselves.

“The alternative can’t be, ‘don’t take anything’. That’s stupid, that’s very naive, living in an ivory tower. These athletes train every day, they need to put things in their body to replace what they take out. We want to know how to prevent what happened to Dwain.”