The fight against doping in sport has sometimes resembled an apathetic arm wrestle that recalls the Mick Miller line about not liking people who take drugs — “Customs men for example,” the comic said. But the reaction to Dwain Chambers’s inclusion in the Great Britain team yesterday will make some wonder whether Niels de Vos has started something.

The chief executive of UK Athletics (UKA) has been much maligned in recent days, accused of singling out Chambers and making vain boasts without having a legal leg to stand on. It is entirely right, according to the first-past-the-post selection criteria, that Chambers should be going to the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, next month, but De Vos has made this a moral rather than a legal issue.

So now that Chambers is assured of his place, the debate moves to what lies ahead for the sport. “There is no ambiguity about this,” Lord Coe, a double Olympic champion, said. “This is not 30 years ago when a 14-year-old child behind the Iron Curtain was given something for breakfast and told it would help them win. I do not accept there are any circumstances where athletes like Dwain Chambers are sucked into something without being absolutely complicit.”

There has not always been that level of objection in the past. It was little more than 18 months ago when the post-ban Chambers was first recalled to the Britain team for the European Cup in Málaga, with Dave Collins, the UKA performance director, talking of needing points and insisting that he was “not the devil incarnate”.

Dame Kelly Holmes, a double Olympic champion, said at the time: “Dwain’s stepped up to the plate, he’s a great athlete and we probably need him back in the sport.” Her view had hardened yesterday when she said: “I don’t think it puts us in a good light as a country allowing a cheat, who has admitted he’s a cheat, to represent us.”

The response from Chambers last night was perhaps predictable. “Other people are allowed to get on with their lives once they have served a punishment, so why can’t I get on with mine?” he said. “I respect people have opinions about me and they are entitled to those. I’m not going to get into a slanging match with them. But they should remember I’m only doing what I’m legally entitled to do.”

One of the selection panel, whose members stated unanimously that they did not want Chambers in the team, was John Trower, who had previously worked with Carl Myerscough, the shot putter, on his appeal against his life ban from the British Olympic Association for doping. The circumstances of the two cases differ, but the disparity in approaches does little to bolster public confidence.

UKA genuinely believes that Chambers’s comeback may be derailed by the mounting disillusionment with drug cheats. There was no evidence of that from the public or his fellow athletes at the trials in Sheffield last weekend, but if Euromeetings, an umbrella body representing most leading promoters, makes good on its threat to ostracise drug cheats, his options will be limited.

Some will see that desire as vindictive given that Myerscough has represented Britain with minimal fuss and was named in yesterday’s team despite not competing at the trials.

They will hope that De Vos is serious in talking of lobbying for life bans and the criminalisation of taking performance-enhancing drugs rather than picking on someone for bad-mouthing the sport to the BBC last year. Asked if a clean athlete could beat a doped one in an Olympic final, Chambers said: “It’s possible but the person that’s taken drugs has to be having a real bad day.” Whether right or wrong, it leaves a sour taste if he is being penalised for speaking freely in a week when the BOA has been heavily criticised for denying athletes that right.

De Vos has now put himself at the forefront of the fight against drugs. Selection rules will be changed to take in reputations and, more importantly, the revised World Anti-Doping Agency’s code, which states that bans for first offences should rise from two to four years from next January.

Dwain's world

In August 2003 Dwain Chambers was part of the Great Britain 4 x 100m relay team who won silver medals at the World Championships in Paris. His career began to unravel later that year.

August 2003 Chambers tests positive for the new “designer steroid” tetrahydrogestrinone (THG). In October, he is banned for two years, expiring in late 2005.

December 2005 Admits using THG for 18 months before failing his drug test, including when he became double European champion in August 2002.

May 2006 The International Association of Athletics Federations orders Chambers to repay prize-money earned during the period he was taking THG, clearing the way for him to return to athletics in June. The IAAF annuls his two golds at the 2002 European Championships and the European 100m record he shared with Linford Christie, as well as his 2003 World Championship silver.

August 2006 Wins gold with the Great Britain 4 x 100m relay team at the European Championships, but the victory is overshadowed by Darren Campbell’s refusal to go on a lap of honour with Chambers.

March 2007 Chambers leaves athletics and joins American football team Hamburg Sea Devils after completing an NFL Europe training camp in Florida.

February 2008 Chambers returns to athletics, winning a place in the Great Britain squad for the World Indoor Championships when UK Athletics is forced to accept his entry after the threat of legal action. Chambers is still repaying the IAAF.

— Words by Marcus Leroux