Dwain Chambers and David Millar have been selected by Team GB to represent us at the London Olympics in a few weeks time. Both men chose to take banned performance enhancing drugs- blatantly cheating by any definition of the word.
When they were caught, they both initially denied any wrongdoing, but later expressed regret for their actions. There is no evidence however, that either would have stopped had they not been found out
There has been cheating in the Olympics for decades and you can be assured that several athletes will be doing so in London. However, the selectors of Team GB had a golden opportunity to at least try and do something.
They did not have to pick either athlete- they could have issued a statement along the lines of:
Whatever the cost to us, even if it diminishes our medal count and we know perfectly well that other countries will send drug cheats to compete against us- we are going to take a stand and send out a clear message to our children who watch these Games and may grow up to be competitors themselves. We want to show them that we really do believe that cheating is wrong and we will not support those who put their own selfish personal gain in front of basic sportsmanship and honesty.
They could have said this, but sadly they didn't and it diminishes us as a result.
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