Pickering and Edgar named for Olympic sprints

LONDON, England (AP) -- British Sprinters Craig Pickering and Tyrone Edgar have been selected for the Olympic 100-meter squad a day after a judge refused to overturn Dwain Chambers' lifetime doping Olympic ban.

Chambers, who served a two-year ban after testing positive for the steroid THG in August 2003, won the British trials in 10.00 seconds last Saturday.

But a judge at London's High Court ruled Friday that he would not grant an injunction against the British Olympic Association's ban partly because it would deny an opportunity to clean athletes who had prepared for the Olympics not expecting Chambers to be competing for selection.

Awaiting the court verdict, the BOA only named European under-23 champion Simeon Williamson, who finished 0.03 seconds behind Chambers, to the sprint squad earlier this week.

Williamson, Pickering and Edgar will be making their Olympic debuts in the Beijing Games next month.

The 21-year-old Pickering was third in the trials, followed by Edgar, who studied at Texas A&M University and is based in California.

Edgar, who won the 100 at last month's European Cup, said Chambers' legal challenge detracted from the rest of the team.

"I'm just thankful the court case is over and grateful for the opportunity," he said. "I've been getting a bit irritated with all the questions about it, but now I just want to forget about it and look forward to Beijing."

Meanwhile Chambers has started to look ahead to the 2012 London Games.

Asked by ITV News if a medal at London 2012 was now an objective Chambers replied: "Participation first and foremost is a key thing for me. And then if I get a medal out of it, that'll be great. Then I'll be done.

"I just want to compete. I'm a born runner, I'm here to run and I just want to do the best I can and show what I really can do as a clean athlete.

"You've got to take the rough with the smooth on this one and I'm a tough cookie, I can deal with it. No matter what, I'm still going to go out and achieve my goals.

"We all make mistakes and we're all kicked to the curb because of it, but we all need to make mistakes in order to learn from them to make ourselves better individuals."

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