(Editor’s Note. Drug policies remain a point of contention around the world. Great Britain continues to advocate for its hard core policy on athletes caught violating anti-doing rules. The British rule remains in opposition to the official policy of the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA)).
January 28 – London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe and Hugh Robertson, the Sport and Olympics Minister, have both written to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to express their support for the British Olympic Association’s lifetime bans for drug cheats.
CAS are due to hear the BOA’s appeal against the World Anti-Doping Authority’s (WADA) decision to declare the British ban “non-compliant” with its anti-doping code in London on March 12.
If the appeal is rejected the sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar will be able to eligible in this summer’s Games.
Both are subject to life-time Olympic bans, under a BOA by-law that bars any athlete who has served a doping ban from selection for any British Olympic team.
Coe is a long-time campaigner against drugs in sport.
“I have written a supportive letter from a personal perspective of somebody who has a long and fairly robust history, and an unreconstructed history some might say, on this,” Coe said.
“It is a personal view.”
Coe’s backing will be a big boost to the campaign being led by Colin Moynihan, the chairman of the BOA, who are now the only National Olympic Committee (NOC) to have a lifetime ban in place for drug cheaters.
Robertson, meanwhile, has written a letter backing the BOA’s right to select its own team without outside interference.
“It remains this Government’s policy to support a lifetime ban for drugs cheats,” he said.
Contact the writer of this story at duncan.mackay@insidethegames.biz.