ONE OF British athletics' most respected voices is urging spectators in Sheffield today to boo drugs cheat Dwain Chambers. David Bedford, international race director of the London Marathon and a former 10,000m world record-holder, is appalled that the disgraced sprinter is on the verge of making the British team for next month's world indoor championships when he competes in the 60m trials today.
"We are a sport that is supported by nice people who are quite intelligent," said Bedford. "I hope their intelligence stretches to booing this guy and shaming him into walking away from our sport and not coming back.
"I hope the crowds have some instincts to boo him. He is not wanted there, he should not be there. The only thing for the sport to do is say, 'Dwain, we don't want you, get out'."
Since Chambers, 29, returned to athletics last month he has been locked in a dispute with UK Athletics (UKA). The governing body initially tried to ban the 2002 European 100m champion from the Norwich Union World Trials and UK Championships, which started in Sheffield yesterday, because he had not been on UK Sport's drug-testing programme for a year.
Chambers, who was banned for two years for failing a test in 2003 for the anabolic ster-oid Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), made an aborted attempt to break into American football last year, after his first return to track and field in 2006. He insists that did not constitute retirement and that he did not ask to leave the drugs register.
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Bedford said: "He has manipulated the circumstances, in my opinion, when he claims, 'I did not actually say I am retiring' and he has used a little bit of incompetence, probably from UKA, to his advantage." He fears the message this conveys in the lead-up to the Olympics in Beijing in August and London in 2012 could be damaging. "If this is not sorted, Britain's movement to 2008 and 2012 will be blighted. The impression people have is you can walk back in." Bedford, 58, who competed at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, is impressed that UKA has at least taken a stance against Chambers. But the sprinter was prepared to go to court if they did not change their minds after he achieved the qualifying mark for the trials. Legally, they had to let him compete. If he wins today - his best time of 6.60sec is equal second on this year's domestic rankings - he will be guaranteed a place at the world indoor championships in Valencia.
Bedford believes there must be a change in the rules to prevent cheats being allowed back. "It is clear that the sport of athletics has failed to make any significant headway on education and win the moral argument. There is only one way left and it is a last chance, and that is to make the penalties so significant," he said.
"It should be a condition of taking part in athletics in this country that you accept, if you fall foul of these doping tests, that you give away your right to argue about not being selected for Great Britain in the future."