Dwain Chambers may have escaped disciplinary action from the IAAF, the world governing body, but controversy continues to follow him. Lord Coe, having been attacked in Chambers's autobiography, said yesterday that he and other anti-drugs campaigners would have to “hold their nose” when watching the sprinter run.

Coe, a vice-president of the IAAF, was speaking at the body's council meeting in Berlin. Chambers faced a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute, but Pierre Weiss, the general secretary, said that there was no reason to take any action. “If other people feel they have been attacked, it is in their hands to do something,” he said.

Coe is unhappy that Chambers raked over his private life in Race Against Me and the mutual antipathy shows no sign of abating. “If you're saying to me, ‘Am I ever comfortable about seeing people who have failed doping tests back on the track?' then the answer is, ‘No, I'm not,'” he said.

“If you have a sanction and that sanction isn't a life ban, then you actually sometimes have to hold your nose and accept that people, within the laws of the sport, come back.” Chambers said: “I'm just glad everything has been sorted and I can start looking forward to a bright future.”

The IAAF could have tried to damn Chambers with a disrepute charge and prevent him from running at the World Championships in Berlin in August. He has avoided that, but his future is still clouded, with a life ban from the Olympics and no invitations to top European meetings. The wisdom of picking a fight with Coe, whom he claimed was supportive during his drugs ban and even said he should come and have dinner with his family, is also questionable.