IAAF uphold drugs-ban on Christie

It did not take long for the implications of the IAAF's judgment to sink in. Within hours of Linford Christie being banned from world athletics, the BBC confirmed he would play no part in their coverage of the Olympics next month.

The former Olympic and world 100metres champion had worked for the BBC as an analyst since 1997, but appeared on the channel only once since the positive test for nandrolone at an indoor meeting in Dortmund in February last year was revealed five months later.

He had hoped to be back in front of the camera for the Games, but news of his twoyear ban scuppered that plan. However his BBC1 children's show, Linford's Record Breakers, will go ahead, for now at least.

The scandal has already cost Christie the support of his most loyal supporter: the shoe company Puma failed to renew his £100,000 sterling annual contract last August for the first time since they started sponsoring him in 1986.

There could also be further legal fees if he finds himself back in the high court to defend himself against accusations that he used performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career.

Christie won £66,000 sterling damages against John McVicar in July 1998, but McVicar, a former armed-robber, said yesterday he would immediately move to have the verdict overturned. "I will be going back to that action now," he said yesterday. "A lot of evidence that would have won me the case was excluded."

Christie is sure to bristle at anyone who suggests the judgment will affect his standing with the British public. When he made a medal presentation at the Olympic trials in Birmingham last month he was given one of the biggest cheers of the weekend.

Christie has always ridden an emotional rollercoaster throughout his career. When he cried during his libel trial in the high court, McVicar labelled him the "Judy Garland of the 100m". After coming so close to being disqualified in Seoul, he later claimed that he looked out of his bedroom window in Seoul and considered committing suicide.

Controversy and confrontation with the doping control-system seem to have dogged Christie's career ever since the 1988 Olympics, where he narrowly avoided being banned after testing positive for the performance-enhancing drug pseudoephedrine following the 200 metres.

An investigation quickly discovered that Christie had taken it unwittingly, in ginseng, which contained the banned drug. When a vote was taken by the International Olympic Committee at 3 a.m. to decide Christie's fate, 11 voted for him, 10 against.

In October 1994, Christie was named in the official inquiry into the "Up Your Gas" pep pills, which earned another British sprinter Solomon Wariso a three-month suspension for taking the pills.

Over the years, Christie frequently stated his total opposition to the use of drugs in athletics. He even went so far as to suggest that offenders ought to serve time in prison.

But Christie was not always as available for drug testing as he claimed. In 1993, in a secret paper for the British Athletic Federation from the Sports Council's doping control unit, Christie was reported as not being at his notified address for a drugs test.

At the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Christie might even have lost his cherished gold medal over a row in doping control when he refused to co-operate for the officials. It was only after he was threatened with being recorded as a "refusal to be tested" and stripped of his gold medal with a four-year ban that Christie co-operated.

Because he complied, no further action was taken. In fact, Christie's row in the Olympic drug-testing centre only came to light at the end of 1994, when he was again reported to the IAAF's governing body for another display of ill temper in doping control at the World Cup meeting in London.

When he announced his retirement in 1997 he must have thought his brushes with the testers were finally over. But he had not counted on that fateful day in Dortmund - when he entered an indoor race for fun.

Throughout his career he channelled his anger into his running. Now he is set to put that same energy into his coaching career. He will use Darren Campbell, Katharine Merry and Jamie Baulch as the vehicles for his frustration, knowing that every success they enjoy will be another one in the eye for his opponents.