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Campbell boycott "nothing personal"

15/08/2006

Darren Campbell insists his boycott of the celebrations following Great Britain's 4x100m relay triumph at last week's European Championships was not due to any personal conflict with fellow sprinter Dwain Chambers.

Campbell refused to take part in the customary lap of honour after the team's win and refused to acknowledge his team-mates on the podium as the quartet received their gold medals.

It had been presumed that Campbell's actions were in protest at the inclusion in the team of Chambers, who was banned for two years after testing positive for the banned steroid THG and cost Campbell and the other men involved two other relay medals.

But speaking on the Today programme, 32-year-old Campbell clarified: "Basically I did it because I have done two laps of honour and subsequently lost two medals. I did not feel it was appropriate to do another lap of honour.

"Dwain Chambers got involved in something and I believe that at some stage we all have to be honest and say the whole situation is not right. I am just speaking from the heart about my personal belief.

"If you think it is OK then that's fine but my personal belief is that Dwain got involved in something, it's nothing personal against Dwain, it could have been any of our British athletes that got involved, but the most important thing is that a lesson is learned from what's happened. At this moment in time no lesson has been learned because nobody knows exactly what happened."

Campbell also explained his decision to stand by his coach, former Olympic 100m champion Linford Christie, despite his failing a drug test in 1999 in the twilight of his career, an issue that had further confused his stance on Chambers.

"I think if you look at who Linford Christie has coached throughout his career and none of the athletes he has coached have ever been embroiled in anything," he stated.

"With regard to the situation that Linford got involved in, I have made it clear on numerous occasions that at the end of the day if I believed that Linford had taken drugs, he would not have been my coach.

"I think what Linford Christie has done for sprinting and for athletics in Great Britain is amazing. If everyone wants to be blind, that is up to them, but the facts speak for themselves."

Campbell is expected to announce his retirement from competing after this week's World Junior Championships in Beijing, an event at which he is helping mentor Britain's future stars.

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