Niran de Silva reflects on Dwain Chambers' failure to overturn a byelaw making him ineligible for the Beijing Olympics
The recent application by the sprinter Dwain Chambers for an interim injunction, which would effectively have required the British Olympic Association (BOA) to select him for the Beijing Olympics, raises a number of issues relating to the enforcement of anti-doping rules in sport.
The background to the application was that the BOA's byelaw 25 prevented Chambers from being selected for Team GB at any Olympics as he had previously been found guilty of a doping offence. This rule applied even though the original two-year ban for the offence imposed by UK Athletics had expired.
Chambers argued that byelaw 25 was in restraint of trade, irrational or perverse so as to engage the court's supervisory jurisdiction, and also contrary to European and domestic competition law. However, the judge found that he had failed to prove there was a reviewable restraint of trade or that the byelaw was disproportionate. He also found that Chambers had delayed too long to be entitled to relief.
