The organisers of this summer's Beijing Olympics must be a nervous lot.

With the Games just 153 days away, there will be the usual trepidation over untested venues, but the Chinese have the added spectre of athletes criticising their human rights violations hanging over them.

And, of course, there is also the old chestnut that rears its ugly head every Olympiad - drug cheats.

I was interested to hear former World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) supremo Dick Pound this week suggest the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban on Dwain Chambers competing for Team GB would not stand up in court.

"As a matter of law, I think the BOA would be on pretty shaky ground," the 65-year-old, a practising lawyer, told BBC Sport.

"If the BOA sought to deny me a place in the 2008 Olympic team on the basis solely of my earlier drugs offence, I would say they don't have the power to do that."

Contrast Pound's comments to his reaction when Aussie cricketer Shane Warne tested positive for a banned diuretic during the 2003 World Cup.

The Canadian, then still with WADA, placed pressure on the Australian Sports Drug Agency to suspend Warne, and postured that Australian sport was well-known for accusing others of cheating but considerably less enthusiastic about prosecuting its own.

He may have had a point, but surely his views are a contradiction of what he is saying five years down the track?

While the BOA is taking a stand against an athlete guilty of taking a performance-enhancing drug, the one-time chief of the world's anti-drug police is giving him ammunition to undermine them.

I applaud Britain's decision to ban drug cheats from ever wearing their vest at the Olympics. Some, like Pound, say Chambers has served his time, but I don't buy that.

Once an athlete is tainted by drugs, how can we ever trust them? Should they compete - and win - how can we believe their achievements are legal?

And how can their beaten opponents accept ability alone - and nothing more sinister - has proved their undoing?

Teddington-based Mo Farah, Craig Mottram and Jo Pavey, Twickenham's Andy Baddeley and former Richmond resident Mara Yamauchi are among those who will head to Beijing hoping the thousands of hours of hard work they have put in will bring them a medal.

They deserve the courtesy of knowing everyone who lines up alongside them is clean.