DWAIN CHAMBERS, the European 100 metres champion, who is planning his return from a two-year drugs ban next month, faces further suspension if he fails to pay back dishonestly earned prize-money. The world governing body is studying an admission by Chambers that he was doping for some 15 months before failing a test and, if satisfied that he was, the prize-money issue may block his return.
Chambers, 27, is training in Jamaica with a view to making his comeback in Sheffield on February 11 at the British trials for the World Indoor Championships in Moscow in March. According to Richard Robson, his agent, he has passed three of the four mandatory drugs tests that he must take before full reinstatement and is “hellbent on finding his old form”.
When Chambers revealed last month that he had been taking drugs long before he tested positive in August 2003 for the banned steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), he did so knowing that it would cost him dear in honours. He was putting at risk his European title, his British record, Great Britain’s European Championships 4 x 100 metres relay gold medal and their European Cup win.
However, Chambers appeared not to be aware of the IAAF rulebook and it was reported at the time that, upon his return, he may have to run for nothing. The IAAF would, it was said, be within its rules to withhold any prize-money that he may earn. Now it has emerged that rules require him to pay back the money first.
“(The athlete) shall not be entitled to return to competition at the end of his period of ineligibility until such time as any and all payments have been repaid to the relevant person or entity,” IAAF Rule 40 (11) states. An IAAF spokesman confirmed yesterday that, if it is shown that Chambers has a case to answer under its present investigation, the rule may be enforced.
Advertisement
“We are talking of probably hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the spokesman said. While the sum owed since the date of Chambers’s failed drugs test would be relatively minor, his earnings during the preceding period, covering his admission, would be substantially more. The difficulty for Chambers is that, according to Robson, he is not well off.
“Dwain has not worked — ie, run competitively — for two years and he spent a considerable amount on a lawyer,” Robson said. Dr Gabrielle Dolle, the IAAF’s anti-doping administrator, has the task of determining whether Chambers has a case to answer and his decision is due next week.
Dolle is studying a tape of the interviews given by Chambers to the BBC and a Sunday newspaper. Given that the athlete stands by his comments, there seems little chance of him escaping further penalty, which would include the annulment of his results during the earlier period, including his European title.
“He was asked questions about when he started and answered honestly,” Robson said. “He stands totally by it. He got involved unwittingly and we will just have to see what, if anything, happens.” Chambers said in his confession that he had been led to believe that he was taking harmless supplements.
“None of his athletes had tested positive for drugs so I thought it must be all right,” Chambers said, referring to Victor Conte, head of the Burlingame lab at the centre of the Balco drugs scandal. Chambers said that he was confessing because he had “grown up” since becoming a father and because “I can’t afford to put my family in jeopardy”.
Advertisement
The inference is that Chambers wanted to prevent any further damaging revelations after his return. If he can prove that he cannot afford to return his prize-money, the IAAF may consider offering him an alternative route back, as it did in 2001 with Mark Richardson, another British sprinter. That would mean him fronting an educational programme on drugs.