Simeon Williamson got his international call-up yesterday and may get to share a room with Dwain Chambers, the sport’s latest pariah. The 22-year-old sprinter was named in the Great Britain team for next week’s World Indoor Championships in Valencia and has voiced an approval for Chambers that is at odds with the hardline stance of the hierarchy of UK Athletics (UKA).

Dave Collins, the UKA performance director, said that not a single member of the team had expressed concern at Chambers’s controversial inclusion. Athletes will be asked to share rooms in Spain and, given that Williamson has been outspoken in his support of Chambers and received a few training tips, one of Britain’s brightest young talents could room with a convicted drug cheat.

“For some individuals it will be a challenge,” Collins said when asked how he felt the team would react to the presence of Chambers. “To an extent it was ever thus - there will be people you get on with in the team and people you don’t. There is a wide spectrum of opinion in athletics.”

But had anyone expressed any reservations? “Not to me, no,” Collins said. “I think the athletes’ attitude is they are there to do a job and that’s it.”

The claim made by Niels de Vos, the UKA chief executive, that Chambers’s inclusion would be “deeply uncomfortable for everyone” has been undermined by apathy from some quarters and support from others. Yesterday, Collins appeared to be softening.

Having said initially that he would not celebrate if Chambers won gold, he said: “I will be pleased for Dwain if he did well. I watched his performance at the trials and it added to the frustration at seeing this potential wasted.”

The 60 metres final is on Friday week, after which Chambers will decide whether to challenge his life ban from the Olympic Games by the British Olympic Association.

Also in the second wave of selections, Michael East, the former Commonwealth champion, was named in the 1,500 metres. East lost his National Lottery funding last year and was unhappy at finding out via UKA’s web-site. Plagued by injuries and with his wife on maternity leave, East is to run despite being out of the UKA system.

Mo Farah will run in the 3,000 metres, having originally planned to miss the indoor season, while Lisa Dobriskey is added to the women’s equivalent, alongside Helen Clitheroe.

Great Britain squad

Men

60 metres: D Chambers, S Williamson. Reserve: R Fifton. 400 metres: R Buck, S Green. 800 metres: R Hill, D Moss. 1,500 metres: J McIlroy, M East. Reserve: J Brewer. 3,000 metres: M Farah, N McCormick. 60 metres hurdles: A Scott.

High jump: S Oni. Pole vault: S Lewis. Long jump: C Tomlinson. Triple jump: P Idowu. Shot putt: C Myerscough. 4 x 400 metres relay: R Buck, S Green, R Tobin, N Leavey, D Ademuyewo, D Garland*.

Women

60 metres: L Turner, J Kwakye. Reserve: M Douglas. 800 metres: J Meadows, M Okoro. 1,500 metres: J Simpson, S Scott. 3,000 metres: H Clitheroe, L Dobriskey. 60 metres hurdles: S Claxton. Pole vault: K Dennison. Pentathlon: K Sotherton.

* subject to fitness