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By Ken Ferris
LONDON, April 29 - Four British athletes have been
stripped of the silver medals they won in the 4x100 relay final
at the 2003 world athletics championships after Dwain Chambers
decided not to appeal against his two-year ban for doping.
World athletics' ruling body, the International Association
of Athletics Federations (IAAF), said on Thursday it had
stripped out Chambers's results from each event he had contested
since his positive sample was provided on August 1, 2003.
Brazil were promoted to the silver medal in last year's
world 4x100 metres final behind the U.S. with the Netherlands
taking bronze, the IAAF said of the August 31 race.
The other British athletes to lose their medals from the
relay in Paris, where Chambers ran the anchor leg, were
Christian Malcolm, Darren Campbell and Marlon Devonish.
The European champion's fourth place 100 metre finishes at
the worlds in Paris and the season's finale in Monaco on
September 13 were also wiped from the record books.
Chambers, 26, tested positive for the recently discovered
designer steroid THG and was banned for two years in February.
His ban lasts until November 6, 2005, following his expected
decision not to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
LIFE BAN
Chambers, who is banned from the Olympics for life, has
always denied knowingly taking a prohibited substance.
THG, which is banned by the IAAF because it is related to
the banned steroid gestrinone, was discovered by scientists at
the Olympic Analytical Laboratory in Los Angeles last year.
They were alerted to its existence when a syringe was handed
to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) by an unidentified man
claiming to be a well-known athletics coach.
Chambers, regarded as the best British sprinter since 1992
Olympic champion Linford Christie, won the 100 metres at the
1995 European junior championships. He repeated the feat in 1999
with a world junior record.
At the senior level he struggled for consistency and pulled
up with cramp in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games.
But he won the European 100 title in Munich in 2002 and
later that year set a personal best of 9.87 seconds while
finishing second to American Tim Montgomery at the grand prix
final in Paris. Montgomery clocked a world record 9.78 seconds.
At the start of the 2003 outdoor athletics season a golden
future beckoned for Chambers, who believed he was ready to take
over from Maurice Greene as the world number one.
His sprinting career was effectively ended by the two-year
doping ban and he has since considered the possibility of a
career in American football.