Britain stripped of medal
ByReuters
Published 29/04/2004 at 14:56 GMT
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.
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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.
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