BOA awaits decision by CAS on doping law – London Olympics 2012
The British Olympic Association is awaiting a court decision on the issue of illegal doping and its ban in the Olympic Games.
The case which the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) is pondering upon involves both the BOA and Dwain Chambers.
Chambers is an Olympic sprinter who had been placed under a two-year ban by the BOA when he was found to have an illegal drug in his blood stream.
According to the law of the BOA, a two year suspension made Dwain ineligible to take part in any of the future Olympic Games. This in effect translates into a lifetime ban from the Olympic Games. Consequently, Dwain challenged the ruling of the BOA in the
CAS which is now to decide if the decision taken by the BOA is legitimate or not.
Interestingly, the lifetime ban from the Olympic Games on an athlete found to be doping is only prevalent in the United Kingdom as no other Olympic Association in the world imposes such a ban on its athletes.
Furthermore, the BOA law is not in accordance with the stance of the International Olympic Committee on athletes found to be doping.
Sebastian Coe, who is the chief of the upcoming London 2012 Olympic Games, expressed himself on the matter in the following manner, “I do believe this is actually about the autonomy of sporting organizations to make judgements and byelaws that they think
are in the best interest of their sports. I have a problem if individual sports, individual organizations are not able to set those parameters because I think it is really important they are responding to what they think is the right (thing)...The BOA, must
have the right to agree that sanction if they think it is in the common interest of the sport.”
The BOA has been accused by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to be in contradiction with their anti doping code. In the event that the CAS rules against the BOA, it will be a 20-year-old law that the BOA would need to change regarding the action to be
taking when athletes are found to be doping.
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