L-F admits missed tests

Lewis-Francis, a 4x100m relay gold medallist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said he was close to receiving a one-year ban similar to that served by Christine Ohuruogu for the same offence.

Ohuruogu returned from a year's ban for missing the tests earlier this year and won the world 400m title in Osaka.

Lewis-Francis joins European 800m bronze medallist Becky Lyne and European U23 100m champion Simeon Williamson on a list of athletes who have missed two tests.

"I don't know how I am going to do it," the 25-year-old said. "I have two strikes. I am on the final line, I am on the wire.

"I'm not ashamed of it. My two are for being lazy. They both happened when I first moved from Birmingham to train in the south. It was while the system was brand new and they should have given us a bit of leniency. I think it is a rubbish system.

"I have told UK Sport that I will be at home between 7am and 8am and, if that changes, I have to report every move that I do to make sure I don't miss the testers.

"It's a hassle, a big, big hassle. I feel like I am back at school and I have to report to the headmaster everywhere I go."

Lewis-Francis missed his first test in 2005 after his doorbell failed to work when testers called at his rented house in London, and his second in July of last year when he travelled early to Crystal Palace ahead of the grand prix meeting.

He must now avoid missing another test over the next three years as missed tests remain on the records of British athletes for five years.

Lewis-Francis burst onto the scene in 2000 when he won the 100m and sprint relay at the World Junior Championships in Santiago, before taking the European Junior 100m title a year later in Edmonton.

But since then the Birchfield Harrier has struggled to live up to his potential and has repeatedly turned down offers to train in the US with leading sprinters such as Justin Gatlin.

He failed to make the Olympic 100m final in Athens and was stripped of his silver medal at the 2005 European Indoor Championships in Madrid after testing positive for cannabis.

He escaped a lifetime Olympic ban for that offence when UK Athletics ruled the cannabis had not been used as a performance enhancing drug.