February 19, 2008	Tuesday	Safar 11, 1429

LONDON, Feb 18: Former Paralympic champion Dame Tanni Grey Thompson said on Monday she would be pushing for an eight-year ban for drugs cheats.

Grey Thompson has been appointed to lead the task force looking into UK Athletics’ (UKA) doping policy following the uncertainty over the position of Dwain Chambers.

The sprinter, who has previously served a two-year ban, was selected by UKA to represent Great Britain at next month’s World Indoor Championships against their own wishes because they felt their hands were tied.

Grey Thompson will spend the next two weeks with lawyers to find out what the governing body can legally impose.

“Athletes and the sport need clarification of what rules mean and we can’t as a sport keep lurching back and forth,” she told the Press Association. “We need to know what is possible and not possible in the sport.

“I have a hard-line view of anti-doping. I may have the tendency (to be Stalin-esque). I think it should be an eight-year ban.

“But it can’t be what my view of it is because it has got to stand up in a legal framework. There is no point in spending the next six, seven months coming up with recommendations that can’t stand up in court,” she added.

“As a sport, athletics has to decide what it wants its destiny to be because it’s not fair to the sport and not fair to the athletes what we’ve just been through. Will Dwain compete, won’t he? Can he, can’t he qualify. It’s just stupid at the moment.”

Grey Thompson is hoping to meet with Chambers as part of the review to find out the reasons behind his decision to cheat.

The 29-year-old returned from his two-year ban in 2006 after testing positive for tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), but his selection for Valencia is particularly controversial because UKA believed he had retired from the sport and he has not been part of the drug-testing programme.

—AFP