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NOT TAKING THINGS LYING DOWN: Dwain Chambers

THE BRITISH Olympic Association (BOA) has been urged to lift Dwain Chambers’s ban. "There is an increasing lack of support for life-ban sanctions," Chambers's manager Siza Agha said.

The sprinter is considering appealing against a BOA by-law that bars him from competing at the Olympics because he failed a drugs test in 2003.

And there is hope for Chambers as the World Anti-Doping Authority (Wada) wrote to the BOA in October urging them to review their life-ban policy. The United States Anti-Doping Agency has also told the BOA to scrap its policy.

"I find it difficult to understand how the BOA by-law leaves no room for redemption," Agha added.

"It would be very curious if the BOA was unwilling to take advice from the organisations who have the expertise and are charged with the primary responsibility in this field. Such a course, if maintained, would be misconceived and very unfortunate."

The BOA stance has divided opinion over the years. America's former Olympic champion Michael Johnson has voiced his concern that the BOA by-law, which was introduced in 1992, is unfair.

However, Colin Jackson, the double world 110m hurdles champion and Olympic silver medallist, wants Britain's national Olympic committee to "stick to its guns".

Chambers, 33, failed in a previous attempt to overturn his BOA ban prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.