THE former director of UK athletics coaching, Frank Dick, said
yesterday he will sue for ''punitive damages'' from a Sunday newspaper
which claims he acquiesced in the use of banned performance-enhancing
drugs.
Commonwealth Games medallist Drew McMaster, the former Scottish 100
metres champion and Olympic sprinter, made the allegations against the
53-year-old Scot, who resigned his post with the British Athletics
Federation early last year.
He also alleged that an Edinburgh doctor, James Ledingham, had
supplied competitors, including himself, with drugs, and advised them on
how to avoid detection.
Dr Ledingham was heavily involved with the British Olympic Association
for almost a decade until 1987, with Scottish athletics, and is team
doctor for Hibs.
A member of Edinburgh Athletic Club while a competitor, McMaster says
he used illegal drugs himself before and after 1978, when he was a
member of Scotland's 4 x 100 metres relay squad which set a British
record in winning gold at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.
His admission, added to a similar confession from David Jenkins, means
that half of that team are now confirmed doping cheats. There is no
suggestion that the two other members of the quartet, Olympic 100m
champion Allan Wells and European 200m silver medallist Cameron Sharp,
were implicated.
McMaster's primary target, however, was neither Dr Ledingham nor Dick,
but Wells, his bitter rival during their track career. Dick confirmed to
The Herald that the thrust of his questions were directed at trying to
smear Wells.
On the pretext of researching a book, McMaster travelled the length of
Britain interviewing athletes, doctors, and coaches. While secretly
wired to recording equipment, his tactics were to admit his own guilt
regarding drugs in the hope of provoking revealing or incriminating
comments.
Dick says that when McMaster visited him he was more preoccupied with
McMaster's fragile health than in paying particular attention to what he
said. ''I just thought he was being stupid, and told him so,'' said
Dick.
Formerly Scottish national coach, Dick spent 15 years with the British
Athletic Federation, receiving the OBE for services to coaching.
''I absolutely refute all of these allegations,'' Dick said yesterday.
''I am most upset that for the sake of a story somebody should be
damning the sport again, trying to tarnish an incredible period in
British athletics history.
''Throughout my career, when asked, I educated athletes as to how
these drugs worked, and the damage they do, whilst also forcefully
pointing out that taking such drugs is cheating -- and in my opinion
such cheats should be banned for life.''
Wells said yesterday: ''I'm disgusted that McMaster should be raking
the gutters like this, attempting to make money by smearing people like
myself and Frank Dick.
''I have been offered six figures to say that I was involved in drugs.
The truth is that McMaster turned to steroids because I started beating
him -- and I was not using drugs.
''Frank phoned me and warned me about what McMaster was doing, and I
even had a phone call from somebody in Edinburgh whom McMaster had
approached, asking them to say they had supplied me with drugs, which,
of course, they had not,'' he said.
McMaster also went to the home of Cameron Sharp, who still suffers
physical and mental impairment from injuries sustained in a car crash.
His wife Carol, a former international 800m runner, said: ''Both
Cameron and I are outraged by the way Drew McMaster has tried to take
advantage of someone with a brain injury. You can't sink much lower than
that.
''McMaster, wired to a concealed recorder, attempted to provoke some
kind of revelation or damning statement.
''Drew said: 'We all had an agreement that we would do what we had to
do, to get where we wanted to go. We all had to go on the gear (i.e.
anabolic steroids). We were all being sorted out, at our end, but you
had your own arrangements in the West, didn't you, Cameron?''' Sharp was
then based in Kilmarnock, and was coached by Dick.
''Cameron told him he was wrong, and that if there were people in the
team who were dirty, he certainly was not one of them,'' she added.
''Cameron has said he never wants to see or hear from Drew again. If
he comes to our door, he will not be allowed into the house.''
The Scottish Athletic Federation was horrified to learn of the
allegations, and its president Peter Carton confirmed last night that he
would press for the deletion of all drug-tainted performances from the
Scottish record books.
Tony Ward, spokesman for Dick's former employers, the BAF, said: ''We
don't comment on specific allegations of this nature, because that would
invoke trial by media. But the sport is extremely disapointed that the
Sunday Times has devoted so much space to a matter which does not relate
to what is happening in the sport today.''
Dr Ledingham, who has practised in Edinburgh for more than 23 years,
yesterday was said to be spending the day with friends in the Borders
and was unavailable for comment.
McMaster, aged 38 and said to be unemployed, also was unavailable for
comment.
In Tranent, East Lothian, his mother said he had gone to England for
several weeks.
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