British sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar will get the green light to take part in the London Olympics on Monday despite their doping-blighted pasts, media reports claimed on Sunday. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will reveal their decision on Monday at 1400GMT which is expected to slap down the British Olympic Association’s (BOA) bylaw that bans convicted British drugs cheats from taking part in the Games under a lifetime ban. World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has fought the BOA’s policy of imposing life bans for the Olympics arguing that it contravened their code.
Both the BBC and the Daily Telegraph reported on Sunday that CAS will back WADA in Monday’s decision. Despite the impending ruling, both Chambers and Millar would still have to achieve the qualifying standards for July’s Olympics. “The British Olympic Association (BOA) can confirm that today, it has received from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) the written decision in the arbitration between the BOA and the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA),” said a BOA statement.
“As the decision is to be announced first by CAS, and out of respect for CAS and the Arbitration Panel, the BOA will be offering no comment today.” Former European 100m champion Chambers, who won 60m bronze in this year’s world indoor event in Istanbul last month, was banned for two years after testing positive for the anabolic steroid THG in 2004. Millar also served a doping ban in 2004.
Olympic football tickets back on sale: London 2012 will put 1.4million tickets for the Olympic football tournament on sale Monday, organisers confirmed. Re-sales of unwanted tickets were suspended in January after problems with the Ticketmaster computer system, but the technology has been worked on and can now sell up to 250,000 tickets an hour. “We have identified some of the issues that caused us problems in January. We are confident we can cope with anything thrown at us,” Ticketmaster chief executive Chris Edmonds said. The sales window will open at 11am (10:00GMT) on Monday and close at 11pm (22:00GMT) on Sunday, May 6. Tickets will be available for all but five matches: Great Britain men v Uruguay, the men’s quarter-final and semi-final at Wembley, and the men’s and women’s final at Wembley.
The other 1million Olympic tickets, for non-football events, will go on sale in mid-May together with 100,000 football tickets for the high-demand games. So far only 10,000 tickets have been sold for the very first event of the Games, the Great Britain women’s football team against New Zealand and Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium on July 25. Football tickets start at £20 ($32) for adults, with children under 16 able to “pay your age” and over 60s paying as little as £16 at many matches.
Badminton three-day event cancelled: Organisers cancelled this year’s Badminton Horse Trials, arguably the world most prestigious annual three-day event, saying Monday there was “no chance” of the ground drying in time for that would have been a key part of many riders’ Olympic preparations. The competition, which takes place in the grounds of Badminton House in Gloucestershire, south-west England, was due to start on Friday. As well as the upcoming London Olympics Games, this year’s Badminton had been given added significance by the fact Britain’s number one William Fox-Pitt was gunning for the £220,000 Rolex Grand Slam prize awarded for any rider who wins consecutive Burghley, Kentucky and Badminton titles.
