Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

By Jacquelin Magnay

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has been asked to rule whether athletes who have been banned for more than six months for doping offences can compete at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The United States Olympic Committee has contested the IOC’s current Olympic Games ban for drugs offenders in the court, wanting to support defending Olympic 400m champion La Shawn Merritt to compete in London.

Merritt is serving a 21-month ban for taking a sex enhancement product which contained an illegal steroid hormone called DHEA. His ban expires in time for him to compete at the US Olympic trials.

CAS will determine the validity of the IOC rule, which bans athletes serving any drugs suspension of longer than six months from the next Olympic Games.

However, its determination will not help Britain’s star sprinter and world indoor 60m champion Dwain Chambers. Chambers is banned from Olympic competition because of the British Olympic Associations imposes a strict life time ban from the Games for any athlete convicted of a doping charge.

Chambers challenged that rule in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics but was unsuccessful.

The US Olympic Committee’s court action is the second time in recent months that the IOC faces a CAS hearing, although the British Olympic Association’s action to determine the profits of the London 2012 Olympic Games was withdrawn and settled. The US however, have presented a joint front with the IOC in this particular matter, with both bodies issuing simultaneous press releases.

“In the interest of ensuring that all eligible athletes are able to compete in their respective Olympic qualification process, and to establish a degree of certainty as we head toward the Olympic Games in London, the USOC and the IOC have agreed to place the question of the regulation before the CAS,” USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun said.

The IOC Director General, Christophe De Kepper, said a ruling by CAS would eliminate any confusion ahead of next year’s Olympics.

“This arbitration will provide certainty in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympic Games,” he said.