Weightlifting: British weightlifting on the spot: Robert Cole on the decision to be made today on the British lifters sent home from the Olympics for drug-taking

THE nightmare of the Barcelona Olympic Games will return for the British weightlifters, Andrew Davies and Andrew Saxton, when the British Amateur Weightlifting Association's central council meets in London today to discuss their fate.

According to Davies, the super- heavyweight triple gold medallist from the 1990 Commonwealth Games who was sent home from Spain before competing for failing a random drug test, the last three months have been 'up and down'.

Ordered to leave the Olympic village on 31 July, when the results of a pre-Games test carried out by the Sports Council on 10 July showed he had taken the anabolic agent, clenbuterol, the mood of Davies has swung from despair and anger to optimism.

'It has been tough at times, but throughout it all the people who matter to me have remained loyal and never doubted my innocence,' Davies said. 'What I hope is that those people who didn't believe in me will be proved wrong.

'I just want put the whole sad episode behind me and clear my name. Once I've done that I will think about my future. I'm back in light training at the moment, but I can't plan any return to competition until after the weekend.'

Davies also wishes to coach young lifters at the Caldicot School of Weightlifting. With a life ban it might be difficult for him to carry on in that position.

That is the dilemma that faces the 28 good men and true that sit on the central council of BAWLA. Do they cast the two men out of the sport for good, or incur the possible wrath of the Sports Council by confirming them as free to carry on lifting?

'We won't be at the meeting because we aren't banned at the moment. Until they make their decision we have nothing, if anything, to appeal against,' Davies said. 'What they have to decide is whether the drug we took was a banned substance at the time. The drug is licensed for asthma and it was used for that reason.'

So far, Davies and Saxton have been backed in the view that clenbuterol was not an illegal drug before the Games by BAWLA and the International Weightlifting Federation.

'The decision lies entirely in the hands of the weightlifting association and they've told us we won't be made scapegoats,' Davies added. 'If they ban us then Andy and I will appeal and take them to court. How far that will go I don't know, but if they don't ban us then the Sports Council could take action against them.'

As far as Wally Holland, the secretary of BAWLA, is concerned, today's meeting leaves his committee in a no-win situation. They, the amateurs, are ready to be castigated by the professionals of the Sports Council and the British Olympic Association, or be taken to court by the lifters.

'It's going to be the most difficult decision we have ever had to make,' Holland said. 'Even so, we must bring it down to basics and answer one question - did they break our rules?'

(Photograph omitted)