Court case means doping history may not be airbrushed from London 2012

The Evening Standard’s Matthew Beard provides a timely reminder today that doping remain the most difficult issue for the Olympic movement. He reports that an imminent coffee-table book celebrating Britain’s greatest Olympians will not include Linford Christie, the 1992 100m champion.

The debate around Christie’s place in the Olympic pantheon has been well-rehearsed. Despite the fact that he failed a doping test long after his golden night in Barcelona, the British Olympic community is very slow to forgive. But it may not be able to airbrush more recent doping offenders from next summer’s Games if a crucial court ruling goes against them next week.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport is considering an appeal by reigning 400m champion LaShawn Merritt against the International Olympic Committee’s rule 45, which bans any athlete censured for more than six months from entering the next Olympic Games.

It announced this week that it will hand down its judgment next Thursday, October 6.

Merritt was banned for 21 months after failing a drugs test, an adverse finding that he blamed on his use of an off-the-shelf male-enhancement product, but is now competing again and won silver at the recent World Championships.

With the backing of the US Olympic Committee he is attempting to overturn the IOC rule so that he can run in London.

His argument is that the IOC rule is effectively a four-year ban, twice the two-years initially handed down in line with the WADA code, and it therefore constitutes double jeopardy.

All the soundings from the IOC in Lausanne and the athletics community are that CAS will find in Merritt’s favour.

So why does this matter to the British Olympic Association?

The BOA goes even further than the IOC, imposing a life ban from selection for Team GB on any banned athletes. This currently means that Dwayne Chambers, David Millar, a member of the outstanding British cycling team that propelled Mark Cavendish to the World Championships on Sunday and a member of the WADA athletes commission, are out of the running for London despite having served bans and being free to compete in non-Olympic events.

If CAS finds for Merritt the BOA’s byelaw, which has been successfully challenged by athletes including Christine Ohuruogu, will look more vulnerable than ever.

The question will then be whether any of these athletes has the will or the resources to challenge it. As well as legal obstacles they will face the court of public opinion, where we will discover whether the cherished 'Olympic values' stretch to accommodate human frailty, forgiveness and redemption. A personal view is that they should.