Electronic Telegraph Monday 11 September 2000 Tom Knight THE British Olympic Association claim to have an aversion to drug cheats but the manner in which they are supporting Linford Christie is threatening to undermine team spirit at their training camp here. The BOA's published policy is to ban for life from the Olympics anyone convicted of a doping offence and yet, less than a month after Christie was handed a two-year suspension by the International Amateur Athletic Federation following his positive test for nandrolone, the disgraced former Olympic 100 metres champion is running around the Gold Coast as if nothing happened. He has the run of the team's training track at Griffith University, courtesy of official accreditation granted to him by the BOA because he is coach to three of Britain's medal hopes in Katharine Merry, Jamie Baulch and Darren Campbell. But yesterday, at a pre-Olympic warm-up meeting in Runaway Bay, the Sports Minister, Kate Hoey, found herself embroiled in the controversy when she shook hands with Christie after being introduced to the banned sprinter by Kevin Hickey, the BOA's deputy chef de mission in Australia. It was an embarrassment for Hoey coming only four weeks after the BOA president, the Princess Royal, had reaffirmed her organisation's tough stance towards drug cheats. The BOA's only comment on the untimely meeting was that Hickey and Christie had met by chance in a public place. A spokesman added: "There was no reason for Kevin to snub Linford or be rude." Yet, Hickey had to walk several hundred metres through a VIP reception to make the introduction. Far from being treated like a persona non grata, it is beginning to look as if Christie is being welcomed with open arms. The warm feeling towards Christie is not felt among the athletes at their luxury training camp. One went so far as to call Christie's presence here as "morally wrong" while another said the former world champion was responsible for causing deep divisions in the camp by keeping his group separate from the rest of their team-mates. "He is destructive," he said. Officials from both the BOA and UK Athletics are going out of their way to defend Christie's role though, privately, there is growing frustration at the way the former athlete continues to make his presence felt. There are some who feel he is having an unhealthy influence on his athletes. In fact, while the British team are based on the Gold Coast, Merry, Baulch and Campbell are living 30 minutes away at Couran Cove, the eco-friendly resort they discovered earlier this year when they were forced to move from their normal warm-weather training facility in Sydney because of local bye-laws banning Christie from using state-owned tracks. The Australian media have questioned Christie's involvement with the British team but David Moorcroft, the chief executive of UK Athletics and a staunch supporter of Christie, said: "He is a private individual. He is not banned from coaching." This is in stark contrast to the position adopted by the Irish Olympic Committee, who warned the 1996 triple Olympic swimming champion, Michelle de Bruin, that she would not be welcome as a coach in Sydney after being banned for four years for tampering with a drugs test. There is unease among officials that Christie's athletes refer to themselves as Team Linford and have, in effect, become a team within a team. Merry, however, denied they had cut themselves off. She said: "The facilities enjoyed by the British team are good if you like that kind of thing. "But Team Linford does its own thing. We love it at Couran Cove but we are not hiding. Linford has developed us over the years to be exactly the way he is. We are extremely strong individually and loyal as a group." Eamonn Condon WWW.RunnersGoal.com
