The bitterness over Dwain Chambers's fight to run at the Olympic Games next month reached the High Court in London yesterday, when Lord Moynihan claimed that a victory for the convicted doper would lead to the British in Beijing being labelled “a team of drug cheats”. In his witness statement, the British Olympic Association (BOA) chairman also said that the inclusion of Chambers would cause cash backers to pull out of the London Games in 2012.

Chambers sat patiently throughout the four-hour hearing in Court 76, where he was seeking an injunction against the BOA bylaw banning drugs offenders from appearing at the Olympics. Jonathan Crystal, his barrister, denied that Chambers is a poor example. “He is a very good role model because he has gone on the pathway of redemption and rehabilitation and shown people the error of his ways,” Crystal said. “I am not saying he is the prodigal son, but he was lost and now he has been found.”

That was emotive rhetoric from Crystal, who also said that defeat for Chambers could spell the end of his career. “If he does not go to Beijing, he walks into the sunset,” Crystal said. “If he goes, it is a springboard to further opportunities.”

Mr Justice Mackay said that he would consider his verdict overnight and deliver it at 10.30am today. Crystal argued that the bylaw is an “unreasonable restraint of trade” and “arbitrary, capricious and irrational”.

David Pannick, QC, for the BOA, responded that there was no financial incentive to competing at the Olympics, although some countries, including the United States, award cash for medals. Pannick took issue with Crystal's claim that Chambers had served his two-year ban, in accordance with IAAF rules, and that the BOA ban is an additional, unfair punishment. He pointed out that the IOC had adopted a new rule stating that anyone found guilty of doping after July 1 will miss the Olympics after the expiry of their ban. That means all nationalities can receive two punishments for the same crime. It was suggested that, had Chambers brought his case earlier and won, the BOA would have rewritten its bylaw to fit the IOC rule.

As a couple of protesters sat at the back of the court with “Hypocrisy v Chambers” emblazoned on their T-shirts, Pannick denied that the BOA is simply trying to tailor its rules to catch the athlete. Moynihan said: “If the bylaw were sidestepped in this manner, Team GB could be labelled a team of drug cheats.”

If Chambers gets his injunction, a full hearing will take place in March next year. The BOA says that it is worried that other convicted dopers, notably David Millar, the cyclist, and Carl Myerscough, the shot putter, will follow suit and contact them today if Chambers wins. Given that Millar is competing in the Tour de France and Myerscough has not reached the Olympic qualifying standard, that seems highly unlikely. The deadline for the BOA to deliver team names for Beijing to the IOC is 1am on Sunday.

Crystal claimed that Moynihan's suggestion that the 2012 Games would be affected by the outcome is “an exaggerated position”.

Montell Douglas broke Kathy Cook's 27-year British women's 100 metres record in Loughborough yesterday and said that it had been a “surreal” experience. The 22-year-old, second at the Olympic trials on Saturday but not yet been named in the Great Britain team, recorded 11.05sec. She earlier ran a wind-assisted 10.95.

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