"Dwain is in the top tier of sprinters in our country," he told BBC Sport. "There is no doubt that he will be at the Olympics. Fans are used to him being in the team so already he has been accepted and it has no relevance to the other athletes."

 "I'm really happy Dwain has lost his appeal (against non-selection for Beijing). This is more about a principle than anything else and the decision has sent out a clear message that we are not going to accept people in our team who have committed offences such as this. Dwain, get on with your life, whatever that might be - we don't want you in our team.

We tend to share the views (through BBC) of some other Olympians:

Double Olympic gold-medallist James Cracknell believes Chambers will find it difficult to gain the respect of his fellow athletes in London.

Cracknell said he would have "no desire to talk to Chambers", adding: "I have no respect for him on any level. Especially as he was cheating and he still didn't win. He made the decision to cheat, therefore there is not going to be a level of respect from someone who hasn't."

Cracknell, who won rowing gold at the Sydney Games in 2000 and Athens in 2004, added: "From a personal point of view, when Dwain Chambers tested positive he, as most cheats do, said 'I didn't take anything, it was my supplements'.

"It turns out Dwain was busy injecting himself with all sorts of stuff. It wasn't his supplements. He affected the performances of other people. He lost his team-mates relay medals. He cheated his opposition."

Former 400m runner Roger Black, who was against the overturning of the lifetime ban, told the BBC: "It's a sad day. It's hard to cheer someone on who's purposefully tried to cheat other athletes. I'm not going to boo him, I'm just going to be indifferent."

He added: "I like Dwain. I think he's remorseful, but it's easy to be remorseful when you're caught out. He didn't have to do it in the first place, because most of us didn't."