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.