LONDON, 9 November 2003 — Olympic champion Jonathan Edwards has called on top sports officials to provide a level playing field for the 2004 Games in Athens by including blood tests in all drugs testing.
Edwards, speaking the day that Dwain Chambers was facing a two-year ban after his B sample confirmed a positive test for banned designer steroid THG, also believes that suspect laboratories must be more closely monitored.
“It is incumbent on the IOC and Greek organizers to be totally scrupulous in their (drugs) testing by using the latest technology, including blood testing,” said Edwards, who retired during August’s world championships in Paris.
“Zero tolerance against drug misuse is the only way to eliminate the cloud of suspicion which is hanging over our sport.”
He added: “I think sanctions should be taken against the laboratories who have designed something special to cheat and those athletes who have deliberately used drugs for that reason. The labs should have their licenses taken away and be hit with very heavy fines.” Under British Olympic Association rules, Chambers would also automatically receive a life ban from future Games if he fails to prove his innocence at his hearing, scheduled for Dec. 8.
Chambers has protested his innocence, stressing he was categorically assured that the only supplements he had been given were those which complied with the IAAF anti-doping rules.
On Friday night his legal adviser Graham Shear issued a statement which stressed the athlete had “made no admission whatsoever that he has taken THG or any other banned substance”.
Edwards, meanwhile, retains hope that Chambers can somehow prove his innocence after a B sample result he described as “inevitable”. “They only tested the B sample to check it was his. The result came as no surprise,” said Edwards. I like Dwain a lot and would hope he is innocent — that is not impossible — and maybe he has been naive and irresponsible.”
