Linford Christie's view on Dwain.........

Christie lambasts negative focus on ChambersSachin Nakrani

Saturday February 16, 2008

The Guardian


Linford Christie has expressed his anger at the focus Dwain Chambers' return to athletics has drawn, claiming it has cast a shadow over the sport and unfairly deflected attention from other British competitors currently preparing for the Beijing Olympics.
Christie, whose own career was tarnished by a two-year drugs ban, refused to criticise Chambers directly but made no secret of his annoyance with the sprinter for making recent headlines.
"We are spending the majority of our time talking about a minority of people when we should be focusing our attentions on the majority of athletes, who are out there trying their best," Christie said. "We've got Beijing coming up and the indoor championships in Valencia before that. This is a time to be positive about athletics in this county. Let's support the people who are out there training hard."


But the former Olympic champion, who won gold in the 100 metres at the 1992 Barcelona Games, also attacked Britain's current crop of sprinters for allowing Chambers to become an issue in the first place, insisting the field should be strong enough to prevent a man who was banned from the sport for two years after testing positive for the steroid THG in 2003 from winning his way into contention.

Chambers qualified for next month's World Indoor Championships after winning the 60m at the trials last Sunday and will be allowed to attend the event after an appeal by UK Athletics to stop him failed. UKA is still hoping its attempts to block the 29-year-old from competing in the UK Championships in July will be successful and is supported by the British Olympic Association which is standing firm in its refusal to allow Chambers to compete in Beijing.

In his role as technical coach for UK Athletics Christie is currently preparing the sprinter Christian Malcolm for Beijing. It is a controversial appointment given that Christie has twice tested positive for a banned substance.


At the 1988 Seoul Olympics the International Olympic Committee cleared Christie over the use of pseudoephedrine, agreeing it could have come from ginseng. Eleven years later he was found guilty of using nandrolone at an indoor meeting in Germany. Christie, who had come out of retirement for the race, claimed he accidentally took the substance as part of a nutritional supplement but the IAAF rejected the explanation and banned him for two years. He has always protested his innocence of drugs use.

The 47-year-old claimed the ongoing issue of drugs in athletics had not detracted from the sport's popularity. "People still love athletics. Look at Sheffield [where Sunday's trials were held]. It was packed. People just want to see good performances. They are not focusing on the negative. In athletics there is a belief that if you have an injury it will never heal if you think negative, but if you're positive you can heal yourself. That's what we need to do now."
Christie says Malcolm's preparations for Beijing are progressing well - he ran 6.69secs over 60m at a recent meeting in South Africa - but believes the 28-year-old 200m specialist should be under no pressure to add an Olympic medal to his two World Championship relay bronzes, a sentiment that he feels should be extended to all British athletes.

"Beijing is about youngsters getting the chance to experience the pressure of a major championship which will prepare them for London in four years' time," Christie said. "Some might make semi-finals and finals, while some others might run personal bests. That's what we should judge them on, nothing else."