DC grateful for fresh start

Chambers: Will compete for GB next year

Charles' comments have helped me a lot, allowing people to turn over a new leaf in the way they look at me and that's partly why I've been motivated to write my autobiography and get ready for the indoor season

Dwain Chambers
Quotes of the week

Also see

• Chambers interview part one
• Chambers interview part three
• Chambers interview part four


• Chambers interview part five


• Chambers: A year in pictures

Dwain Chambers admits there is no point even dreaming about competing at London 2012 but nevertheless has reason to believe the tide is beginning to turn in his favour at long last.

The 30-year-old sprinter, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone in 2003, missed out on Beijing this summer having failed to convince the High Court of Justice to grant an injunction to temporarily suspend his lifetime Olympic ban.

Chambers has dismissed the possibility of another appeal and doubts whether even winning gold at next year's World Championships would prompt the British Olympic Association into reconsidering their bylaw, which prevents any proven drugs cheat - no matter how reformed - from participating at a summer Games.

However, despite hitting rock bottom in the wake of the damning verdict, he was given a huge vote of confidence in September when the new UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee insisted he would "welcome" Chambers back into the international fold.

The no-nonsense Dutchmen, who replaced Dave Collins after the UKA scrapped his role of performance director, has vowed to tackle Britain's lack of recent success on the track head-on and that includes allowing the country's fastest man both indoors and outdoors a fresh opportunity.

For such a high-profile figure to consign Chambers' previous mistakes to the past is certainly what the sport needed, although it did initially generate a degree of shock considering how the UKA tried their level best to bar him from the trials for the World Indoor Championships at the start of 2008.

Backing

This crucial backing has enabled the Belgrave Harrier to look forward with renewed vigor while he now hopes van Commenee's encouraging words will set a precedent for others to finally view him in a different light.

"I was very surprised," he said. "I never expected it at all. I'm not that familiar with Charles and I only know of him due to his time with Kelly Sotherton and Denise Lewis. But I've never really touched base with him.

"So for him to come out and say what he did was a breath of fresh air and it was the light I needed at the end of the tunnel.

"I wasn't sure what his approach would be for next year and I didn't know who would support me and who wouldn't.

"But Charles' comments have helped me a lot, allowing people to turn over a new leaf in the way they look at me and that's partly why I've been motivated to write my autobiography and get ready for the indoor season. I'm still trying to piece things together but hopefully I'll be ready in time."

Chambers clinched silver at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia and he's confident that going one better at March's Europeans in Turin will be the catalyst for a triumphant assault on the summer season.

The Londoner, whose autobiography 'Race Against Me' is released in the same month, said: "I want to go hard on the indoors again and hopefully I'll get a few more races and repeat the kind of performances I did this year, but maybe this time with a gold medal.

"That will create great morale for the team and will obviously help boost everyone's confidence as well as mine ahead of the outdoors.

"If I can run 6.50 indoors it can only help my ability to run sub 9.9 during the summer season so that's the objective. If you're in 9.8 shape then you're capable of getting a gold, silver or bronze medal without a doubt."

No more appeals

Should Chambers earn a podium place at the World Championships in Berlin next year there would undoubtedly be suggestions of resurrecting a new challenge to the Olympic ban, especially if the majority of other British athletes fail to shine.

However, Chambers maintains he has only three years left at the top and refuses to contemplate another legal battle.

"I think the decision has already been made and I think I'll have to leave it alone," he said. "Unless the BOA were prepared to change then maybe, but if they're not then we can't because we don't have the financial backing to go through something like that all over again.

"I can't think about lining up in London 2012 unless the BOA were dramatically to change.

"I don't want to put myself through it and I don't want to put the sport through it all over again. I tried my luck but it didn't work so I think it's best to move on, let the past be the past and make the next three years the best I can make.

"At the moment I just want to focus on the World Championships next year and maybe then we can start looking ahead."