Both the BOA and WADA are Dopes

The British Olympic Association and the World Anti-Doping Agency are currently embroiled in a very public spat over whose rules over doping bans are correct.

The BOA ban any hopeful Olympian for life if they have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. WADA mete out two-year bans. The BOA should be commended for their tough-line stance on drug cheats, although this can cause problems when debate and grey areas occur, as they often do, in doping cases.

WADA, despite having 660 signatories to their code, including the IOC and all 204 National Olympic Committees, are too soft with their bans, allowing a 22-year-old cheat to be back competing at 24. However, they are now at loggerheads with the BOA over their non-compliancy and could issue sanctions towards the BOA, just months before the 2012 London Olympics for, in effect, being tough on cheats.

To my mind the answer is a simple compromise. First-time drug cheats should be banned for four years, then allowed back to compete. Why? Because everyone deserves a second chance in life to make amends for what could have been a naive mistake influenced by others. Two years is nothing. Four years is a sizeable chunk out of any sportsman's career and enough, surely, to put anyone off from cheating. If they are caught for a second time then it is an instant life ban.

The problem with the BOA's stance, laudable though it is, is that British athletes feel aggrieved that they have one, stringent law for themselves, and a far more lenient rule for everyone else, and that while sprinter Dwain Chambers and cyclist David Millar are banned under BOA regulations from competing in London, the Games will be full of returning athletes who have served out their two-year bans.

That, palpably, is unfair. Four years, or maybe even five years, is a major deterrent, which will please the BOA because it is far tougher than WADA's rules, and please WADA because it is not a life ban supported by the BOA. Come on guys. It's not rocket science!