Appeal To Keep Olympic Ban On Drug Cheats

The man behind the GB Olympic ban on drug cheats has told Sky News it would feel as if "a little bit of me has died" if it is overturned.

Martin Cross led the way in formulating the life-ban bylaw as chairman of the British Olympic Association's (BOA) athletes' commission almost 20 years ago.

And he admitted he "punched the air" when Dwain Chambers failed to beat the ban in 2008.

Now the BOA has announced it will challenge the view of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that its bylaw is non-compliant at the Court Of Arbitration For Sport (CAS) early next year.

Cross, who won coxed fours gold alongside Steve Redgrave at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, said his view has not changed at all since the bylaw was introduced in 1992 when Sir Arthur Gold was the BOA's chairman.

"I think the reduction, by WADA, of sport to something you engage in like a trade - as opposed to something that's got higher qualities - means something of it dies," said the 54-year-old.

"When something of that dies, something in you dies. That's what it would be like. It would feel as if a little bit of me has died."

High profile former and current athletes such as Paula Radcliffe , Jessica Ennis , Jonathan Edwards and Christian Malcolm have said they would like to see the BOA allow drug cheats a second chance.

But Cross claims they are "hugely in the minority".

"Nobody at WADA's been done out of a medal. They're just being paid to do a job. Alright, they do it to the best of their ability but there's thousands and thousands of athletes that have been cheated by people who've taken drugs.

"I don't go down the second chance route.

"Most athletes have a very purist view of the Olympics, that it is the highest of the high.

"That kind of makes it different qualitatively from a world championships. There is that aura and that's really what they want to protect."

Cross believes an athlete who cheats loses the trust of spectators forever, not simply for the two years of a ban.

"There are certain jobs where, if you commit certain offences, it's not appropriate to go back into that job.

"And, almost all the athletes I know think that that is exactly the case with people who dope."

Cross said it was not difficult to get the BOA to back the bylaw two decades ago.

"Sometimes athletes are patronised by administrators. On this occasion, because there was so much feeling about it, and Sir Arthur Gold was known to be fighting against drug cheats pretty much his whole life, it was one of the easiest athlete-led initiatives to actually get through the BOA."

The BOA will take an experienced legal team to CAS next year, including Adam Lewis QC, who was instrumental last week in getting Wayne Rooney's Euro 2012 ban reduced.