Dwain Chambers may have tougher barriers to overcome in his bid to reach the Olympic Games in Beijing, but fate played its hand yesterday to reduce his chances of making the team. Chambers was forced to run into a strong headwind in all three of his races at the South of England championships at Crystal Palace as he pursued an Olympic 100m qualifying time of 10.21 seconds. He hardly stood a chance of securing the mark.

He won the final in 10.24sec, having won his heat in 10.31sec and his semi-final in 10.40sec – but either side of his races, the gusts were with the athletes, not against them.

“The wind was swinging around and around, but not in my favour, for whatever reason that was,” said Chambers. “It shows that I am in 10.1 shape, or even 10.0, if you turn the wind around. I will get there. Today has proved that I just have to deal with some unforeseen circumstances.”

Significantly, he confirmed that until he has recorded 10.21sec, he will not be launching a legal challenge against the British Olympic Association (BOA) in his attempt to overturn its lifetime ban on competing at any future Games following his drugs suspension. When asked if he was going to wait until he had achieved the time, he replied: “Pretty much,” adding: “It [the qualifying time] will come, it will definitely come.”

Yet time is what he does not have much of. He is not going to race again until Saturday week, when he runs in a meeting in Biberach, Germany, only two weeks ahead of the Olympic trials in Birmingham.

The BOA has to send its complete team for Beijing to the International Olympic Committee on July 20. It remains possible that if Chambers is left to achieve the qualifying time at the trials on July 12, he would take the BOA to court during the only week he would have left.

“As I said earlier, and I will repeat it, I would not be doing this if I did not think I could come back and do anything in Beijing,” he said. But he revealed that his legal bid applied only to run in the individual event, not the 4 x 100m relay. “The team have been working together and it would be unfair for me to come in and ruin all their work,” he said.

As Chambers sat on the infield at the national sports centre, smiling and happy to be there, the extent of his fall from grace could not have been greater. The last time he ran at Crystal Palace almost five years ago, he was feted by 18,000 fans when he won a high-class 100m at the summer’s showpiece grand prix.

Yesterday, take away the coaches, athletes and family members sitting in the stand, and the place would have been empty.

But for Chambers it is all part of the only route he can follow to revive a career that was ruined by his decision to take the performance-enhancing steroid tetrahydrogestrinone. He was competing at these regional championships because of the difficulty that athletes with a drugs past have of securing places in the major grands prix.

He was at his quickest of the summer yesterday, running 0.01sec inside his mark in Greece at the start of the month, and he may regret slowing down in the heats, considering the conditions.

The wind was stronger in his semi-final, which he won again unchallenged before he powered down the straight in the final, only to no avail.

Having returned to athletics in the winter after a career in American Football failed to materialise, Chambers won silver in the 60m at the world indoor championships in Valencia before attempting to become a rugby league player with Castleford Tigers. The 30-year-old was not offered a contract by the Super League club and he is slowly readjusting to the 100m.