British court rejects Chambers’ appeal

British sprinter Dwain Chambers tested positive five years ago for the designer steroid THG, joining Marion Jones, Barry Bonds and Shane Mosley on the list of those accused of cheating with the help of the Northern California lab known as BALCO.

Unlike the others, however, Chambers tried to redeem himself by revealing the secrets of his deception to UK anti-doping authorities.

Chambers said he was able to “duck and dodge” drug testers by repeatedly calling his own cellphone to fill its message in-box to capacity, according to a letter written by BALCO founder Victor Conte that Chambers requested and provided to authorities.

“I gave them brands, doses, purposes,” Conte told The Times. “It was the most detailed letter that any anti-doping agency has ever received about how doping is done.”

On Friday, however, Britain’s High Court in London effectively dismissed Chambers’ remorse -- and his argument that an Olympic ban represented unfair restraint of trade -- by rejecting his appeal for an injunction that would allow him to compete in the 100-meter race in next month’s Olympics in Beijing.

Instead, the court ruled that a British Olympics Assn. bylaw mandating a lifetime ban from the Olympics for doping means exactly that.

Chambers, 30, had already served a two-year doping ban after testing positive for THG in 2003. Other countries, including the United States, have allowed suspended dopers to return to Olympic competition once their sanction is exhausted.

“Many people both inside and outside sport would see this . . . as unlawful,” Judge Colin Mackay said. “It would take a much better case than the claimant has presented to persuade me to overturn the status quo at this stage and compel his selection for the Games.”

Mackay also cited a new International Olympic Committee rule that bans athletes from their next Olympics if they’ve been handed a doping suspension of six months or more.

Chambers, who had urged the court to consider his family and current financial struggles, said after the ruling, “The judge has made his decision.”

Chambers qualified for the Games by winning the British Olympic trials in Birmingham this month.

His attorney argued that Chambers represented the country’s “best chance of a podium finish,” in Beijing, and also urged the court to consider the sprinter’s “redemption and rehabilitation.”

In a three-page letter, Conte reported that Chambers used seven prohibited substances: THG, testosterone cream, EPO, human growth hormone, insulin, modafinil and liothryonine, explaining how often and why each was used to benefit an intense weight training regimen while assisting recovery.

Conte urges authorities in the letter to increase random, unannounced testing of top athletes in the fourth quarter of the year. Currently, both the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and track and field’s governing International Assn. of Athletics Federations cut their out-of-competition testing in half during the fourth quarter from their peak testing periods.

As for Chambers, former World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound said he believed the sprinter’s ban from the Olympics qualifies as “an additional sanction” to the WADA code that resulted in the two-year suspension.

“He served that,” Pound told The Times. “But on a philosophical basis, frankly, I have no sympathy for him. This was no accident.”

There was sympathy elsewhere, however.

Longtime British track coach Frank Dick complained that “other athletes in other countries don’t have this bylaw. It may have to change. In a real-world situation, the best solution would be a five-year ban from a positive test, and again if you have a second. Who’s going to survive 10 years in sprinting?”

In the Guardian newspaper, British writer Duncan MacKay, who exposed Chambers’ doping, said, “I think that as the only British athlete to have tested positive for drugs and then had the honesty to admit it, he should have been given the opportunity to redeem himself.”

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lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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How to beat the system

In a bid to be reinstated for the Beijing Olympics, disgraced sprinter Dwain Chambers asked BALCO founder Victor Conte to provide details to authorities of Chambers’ doping regimen. He noted how the use of fast-acting testosterone, like creams and gels, can clear the system in less than a week, easing the athlete’s “duck and dodge” technique that allows them to miss two drug tests any time during an 18-month period.

* “First, the athlete repeatedly calls their own cellphone until the message capacity is full,” Conte wrote. “This way, the athlete can claim to the testers that they didn’t get a message when they finally decide to make themselves available.

* “Secondly, they provide incorrect information on their whereabouts form. They say they are going one place and then go to another. Thereafter, they start using testosterone, growth hormone and other drugs for a short cycle of two to three weeks.

* “After the athlete . . . know that they will test clean, they become available and resume training at their regular facility. . . . Long story short, an athlete can continue to duck and dive until they have two missed tests.”

-- Lance Pugmire