Athletics: Dwain urged to come clean on cheats

Mar 19 2008 by Our Correspondent, Western Mail

DRUG cheat Dwain Chambers has been told to come clean over what he knows about the use of banned substances by athletes in order to help in the battle to eradicate it from the sport.

John Scott, director of Drug-Free Sport at UK Sport, said the sprinter should do more to help the authorities if he wanted to truly rehabilitate himself back into the athletics community.

Chambers, 29, served a two-year ban after failing a drugs test in 2003 but has since returned and won a 60m silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia earlier this month.

“He says he made mistakes, but there has not been a willingness to point fingers at those who helped him or to be honest about the drugs he was on,” said Scott.

“It has been a long time since Dwain was caught and there has been no effort by him to actually share information.

“We have to get much more sophisticated about how we assemble information so we know when is best to test somebody – when we’re most likely to catch them with something in their system – and that we’re testing in a way that can catch those around the athlete as well.

“We need much more co-operation from those who have been caught and are prepared to share knowledge with us, but one of the biggest challenges is that the natural reaction of any athlete that has been caught is denial.

“We’re interested in what Chambers took, when he took it, why he took it then and the benefits. It’s is needed if you are going to improve testing programme.”