Drug cheat Chambers is left in limbo over future

As Chambers waited to learn whether he has been selected for the World Indoor Championships in Valencia next month, there was a new row brewing over the biggest international in Britain this winter.

Chambers hopes to run in front of 8,000 spectators at the National Indoor Arena as the next stage of his controversial comeback from a drugs ban.

But even though the start list for the 60 metres includes Craig Pickering, Simeon Williamson and Rikki Fifton, who all trailed in behind Chambers in Sheffield on Sunday at the World Indoor trials, there was still no place for the champion.

A meeting spokesman revealed that no decision had been made on whether he would be there and it is likely to be announced after the first wave of names for the World Championships in Valencia on March 7-9 is released this afternoon.

UKA's six selectors met for three hours yesterday and Chambers' solicitor Nick Collins has already made plans for legal action should his client be left out.

Chambers, 29, who was banned in 2003 for failing a drugs test for the designer steroid THG, has met all the main criteria needed for selection.

He has the qualifying time for Valencia and won the trials, but UKA have the get-out of an 'exceptional circumstance' clause should they decide to leave him out.

The selectors may let the drama roll on for another week. The team is finalised after Birmingham and the selectors have the option of not naming anyone in the 60m until then.

In the wake of his victory in Sheffield, Chambers began plotting his next races and Birmingham was on his agenda.

He said: "I will hopefully go to the Grand Prix and then I will prepare for the World Indoors. I would like to be invited. I want to compete, I want to have fun."

Olympic silver medallist Steve Cram has revealed he would not pick Chambers.

And Cram, one of the world's dominant middle-distance runners during the 1980s, said the ban that Chambers was given for testing positive for a banned substance was not enough.

"If I was a selector I wouldn't pick him," wrote Cram in his BBC Sport online column.

"The reasons? he did an awful lot of damage to the sport in the UK and in world terms, too, and as an athlete it's not easy to be quite as forgiving as the general public might be."

Christine Ohuruogu, the women's 400m world champion who was suspended for 12 months for missing three drug tests, is competing in Birmingham.

Although Chambers is officially banned from running for Britain at the Olympics, it is understood that the momentum he has gained by being allowed to run at the trials could spark him into making a bid to be in Beijing.

The British Olympic Association by-law preventing athletes who have failed a drugs test from representing Team GB has never been challenged in court.