Scot to fight ban

European 200 metres champion Dougie Walker vowed yesterday to fight a two-year ban imposed after he tested positive for the steroid nandrolone last December.

The British governing body UK Athletics announced earlier that an independent Doping Advisory Committee had concluded that a doping offence had been committed.

"On the basis of this decision UK Athletics recognises its responsibility to follow its own rules," UK Athletics said in a statement.

"Doug Walker is therefore suspended from athletic competition pending a disciplinary hearing."

At a news conference, held appropriately in the council chambers of the Law Society, Walker's lawyer Nick Bitel confirmed Walker would appeal against the decision.

"Dougie is going to fight this because he's innocent," Bitel said. "There's only one person who knows that for certain and that's Dougie Walker."

Walker, who won the European 200 metres gold medal for Britain in Budapest last year, tested positive at an out-of-competition test last December.

UK Athletics, which took over from the bankrupt British Athletic Federation (BAF) this year, subsequently announced it would set up a special committee to look at the evidence.

Bitel said Walker was "extremely angry" both at the delay and also because he had had no access to the laboratory report on the test, conducted by the UK Sports Council.

"The delay has been appalling as far as Dougie is concerned," he said. "This is just the beginning, not the end."

Walker told the new conference he had never taken or been offered drugs. Asked why the sample was positive, he replied: "I have no idea."

Bitel said there was evidence that a similar finding could be produced by athletes taking legal food supplements.

The announcement will provoke unwelcome echoes of the Diane Modahl case for UK Athletics.

Modahl successfully appealed against a four-year suspension, then the maximum penalty imposed by the world governing body, after testing positive for the male sex hormone testosterone at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games.

She has still has an outstanding action against BAF for more than £500,000.