Dwain Chambers’s long and winding course towards the Olympic Games will take a leap forward today when he lodges a legal challenge to the bylaw banning him from sport’s biggest stage. The sprinter hopes that his case will be heard in the High Court before the Olympic trials, which start a week tomorrow.

The legal challenge was likely once Chambers gained the Olympic qualifying time for the 100 metres. He did that last weekend, clocking 10.06sec in Biberach, Germany, to move to the top of the British rankings. It is a landmark case that could quash a bylaw designed to keep convicted drug offenders from representing Great Britain at the Olympics. Introduced in 1992, bylaw 25 has been subjected to 27 successful appeals, the most recent involving Christine Ohuruogu, the 400 metres world champion.

Chambers’s case differs because he is not appealing to the BOA, but questioning the legality of a rule that has punished him a second time after the ban handed out by the IAAF, the world governing body; Chambers completed a two-year ban for taking tetrahydrogestrinone in 2005.

Chambers’s legal team, comprising Jonathan Crystal and Nick Collins, believe that they have a strong case. Only Norway and China have a similar rule, with the latter introducing it only in March. Chambers could have taken his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but the High Court promises a swifter resolution. The hearing should take no more than two days.

This week it emerged that 95 members of the British Athletes Commission, including Sir Steve Redgrave and Dame Kelly Holmes, had signed an open letter supporting the bylaw. Chambers’s team were unimpressed by the timing of that story. “It is more significant who is not on that list,” Collins said.

- Oscar Pistorius, the South African amputee, failed in his attempt to secure a place at the Beijing Olympics last night. Pistorius, running his first race since being cleared to compete against able-bodied athletes, finished well outside the 400 metres qualifying standard of 45.55sec at a meeting in Milan. The 21-year-old ran 47.78sec as he finished fourth in the B race at the Notturna di Milano event.