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Should he stay or should he go?
After all the hoo-ha about whether he could compete in the World Indoor Championships a while ago, there’s now even more hoo-ha about whether Dwain Chambers should be able to compete in the Olympics.
It comes down to a British Olympic Committee (BOC) rule that anyone who has been banned from sport for taking drugs cannot compete for the UK in the Olympics. It’s a rule that’s been in place since the early 90’s and was apparently introduced with the full backing of athletes (although possibly without the full backing of legality). Dwain Chambers was fully aware of this rule before he committed his offence.
The problem is that both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) say that when an athlete has served his ban, he can compete in all competitions. Of course, the BOC were hoping that Chambers would not meet their qualifying criteria so there would be no problem. Trouble is, he ran rings round everyone else and qualified easily.
Pretty much everyone in UK sport seems to be against Chambers competing because of his past record. But he served his ban and he’s come back better than ever and is beating everyone. If you’re not going to allow athletes to serve their time and rehabilitate, then why not just ban them for life? No chance of parole.
To my mind, the Olympics are run by the IOC so their rules should apply. That means that Chambers can run. Whether the BOC rule is legal or not is a question that will be argued back and forth for quite some time to come; in the meantime we don’t have so many great athletes that we can afford to put barriers in place to stop them competing.
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