THE barrister who looks after the affairs of convicted drug cheat Dwain Chambers told a London newspaper yesterday that the British Olympic Association's appeal process on doping reinstatement is "inherently flawed".

The challenge, from the sprinter's manager Siza Agha, follows a ruling that the BOA stance on eligibility of athletes like Chambers and cyclist David Millar do not conform to the World Anti-Doping Agency's code.

The BOA now feels it has no option but to take the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, and Agha's muscle-flexing on Chambers's behalf hints that a further legal challenge to the BOA in UK courts may be imminent.

Agha characterised the BOA appeals process as flawed: "Essentially if an athlete keeps quiet and maintains that a banned substance was in their system because of a horrible mistake, someone spiked a drink, an unknown cream was applied or a banned substance was buried in the small print of packaging then that athlete would have a right of appeal within the bye-law. Conversely, if an athlete does what is universally viewed as the right thing and comes clean there is no appeal."

This view is subjective to say the least. "Come clean"? Chambers confessed his guilt only when exposed by incontrovertible evidence of serial cheating. Under BOA rules, this precludes him from future Olympic selection. The BOA denies double jeopardy of an additional sanction, saying it is an eligibility issue under their by-laws.

WADA have now given their findings on that bylaw in writing, but if CAS fails to support the BOA (and unfortunately, I don't see how they can) then participation in the 2012 Olympics will not only be a step closer for Chambers, but also possibly for Scotland's Commonwealth gold-medal cyclist Millar and England's bronze-medal shot putter Carl Myerscough.

A pathetically desperate and unseemly greed for medals by these country's Games councils, which failed to match the robust BOA attitude, allowed them to compete in Delhi – a shameful message to send to athletes there on honourable merit. More pertinently, it was also one which took no cognisance of scientific evidence.

To those seduced by the torrent of self-serving apologia for the brotherhood of the needle – dream-thieves who deny honest athletes the chance of selection – I would point to a London doping conference in 2008. Chambers, who tested positive for a drug specifically designed to elude detection, was commendably frank when challenged by Michelle Verroken, the former head of ethics and anti-doping at UK Sport.

Asked if he would have carried on taking drugs had he not been caught, he replied, "More than likely."

I don't doubt it was an enormous feat of will, focus, training and sacrifice for Chambers to match previous drug-fueled performances while being regularly tested and become World indoor champion at 60 metres in Doha last year. Especially without lottery resources now denied him because of that offence. Just as it was for Millar to mount the podium in Delhi.

However, that is the same will, focus, training and sacrifice displayed by honest competitors, daily.

Instead of pussy-footing around a legal minefield, and paying fore-lock tugging subservience to Swiss legal precedent, CAS should assert true independence, and consider just one thing: do drug cheats continue to derive a residual benefit from their years of abuse once they have served their suspension?

WADA in reality have not greatly impacted on doping (a few high-profile convictions, thanks to the FBI – not their test programme – but little improvement on detection percentages). Verroken drew my attention yesterday to a report headed: "Performance enhancement from doping is for life and not just for Christmas".

The Washington-based Science News last year published a paper from a five-strong Norwegian research team at Oslo University's Department of Molecular Biosciences. Its contents should be required reading for both CAS and WADA.

Verroken runs a company called Sporting Integrity. It has wide-ranging activities, and clients include the R&A, European Tour, Ladies European Tour, and the International Golf Federation. I'm grateful to her for explaining the scientific content of the Norwegian research, but the key statements were intelligible, even to a non-scientist: "Effects of previous strength training can be long-lived, even after prolonged subsequent inactivity, and retraining is facilitated by a previous training episode. Anabolic steroids . . . may also have implications for exclusion periods after a doping offence."

As Verroken put it: "Essentially, the nuclei in muscle cells enhanced by training do not disappear when you stop . . . For me, it shows there is definitely a residual benefit, which is why the two-year suspension is totally inadequate. You look at some athletes [doping offenders] and you see a very different musculature from others.

"It is not rocket science that if you are able to train harder and longer, assisted by drugs, then the benefits are likely to be greater."

WADA is asking the BOA to review its rules. Instead they should spend their resources on finding data to strengthen the Norwegian research, then present a watertight case to CAS which would allow all national Olympic committees to adopt the BOA stance and exclude cheats for life.