Chambers Spills the Beans

If you're keeping up with athletic news, then you already know by now that the British athletics have painted a terrible image of athlete Dwain Chambers. No invites to meets, explicit exclusion from major events, the works. Cover story is, Chambers took drugs and after successfully completing his 2 year suspension, the British Athletics Council decide that they must set an example to all drug users out there and use Chambers as their main poster child. Technically, the ruling was that Chambers can compete after completing his ban period, but since the sports council of UK is independent from the government, they can still exclude athletes as they see fit, and Chambers, sadly, is somewhat of a favored enemy-- and by that, it means that Chambers will be repeatedly shot down as long as they like.

Again, that was the cover story. However, Chambers has revealed something more to the tale-- and the reason why the British Athletics Council is so particularly keen in keeping him suppressed.

By vehemently denying Chambers the right to compete, they are worsening the odds on their struggle against doping. Pretty soon, anyone can inject themselves with whatever they wish and drug companies will cash in the benefits.

The athletic council's woe comes from the fact that Chambers had been a lot more honest about the drug situation as was expected. Because really, if it was just the issue of his two-year ban that's ticking them off, then there are plenty of other former drug users who should have been getting the boot right now. Like Carl Myerscough who was actually welcomed with loving arms in Valencia.

As it stands, Chambers had revealed much more about the state of drugs in sports than the council wished to be made known to the public. Chambers had admitted that it was nigh-on impossible for drug-free athletes to win, unless the drug companies are having a bad day. Indeed, Chambers reveals that most and not just a select number of bold athletes are into drugs-- and that is the ugly reality that the UK athletics council must face. Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, who have been summarily stripped of their achievements only owned up because of the intense legal weight bearing down on them.

When Chambers returned to the track, a lot of people were put-off, and he was treated like he had a contagious, incurable disease. This is perhaps what compelled him to reveal this dark secret to the public, describing the drugs business in great detail, and perhaps earning more ire from those existing but yet undiscovered drug users.

There is much hypocrisy in Chambers treatment whether the athletics council admits to it or not. If they were even half as serious in weeding out drugs, they would not be burgeoning Chambers with cries of foul play while the same council had tried to provide excuses for Christine Ohuruogu who not only returned from suspension and was unavailable for three drug tests-- she had to win a World Championship gold medal as well.

Sure, people can sympathize all they want but three incidents of failure to attend drug tests is already a grave trespass in the anti-drug rulebook, and it is this kind of blatant hypocrisy that makes Chamber's case such a hot topic.