Chambers decision delayed until Friday

LONDON (Reuters) - Sprinter Dwain Chambers will have to wait until Friday to find out if his High Court challenge to an Olympic ban imposed by the British Olympic Association (BOA) has been successful.

A decision had been expected on Thursday but the judge presiding over the appeal is now expected to reveal his decision on Friday, one day before the BOA must submit its athletics team to the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Chambers is banned from competing at the Olympics because of a BOA bylaw which prevents athletes guilty of past doping offences representing their country at the Games but he is hoping to gain an injunction allowing him to run in Beijing.

The 30-year-old, who served a ban after testing positive for the steroid THG in 2003, won the 100m at the British Olympic trials last weekend in Birmingham in a time of 10.0 seconds.

Chambers was stripped of the gold medal he won at the 2002 European championships but returned to action to win the 60m silver medal at this year's world indoor championships.

(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Miles Evans)

(For more stories visit our multimedia website "Road to Beijing" here; and see our blog at blogs.reuters.com/china)