Chambers' Biography

[eldrick]

as expected, parts of it serialised in domestic tabloid

http://tinyurl.com/aeh3uo

more next 2 days

[eldrick]

as promised, the rest of the tripe

http://tinyurl.com/boo9q4

can someone please plough thru it & highlight any "interesting" parts, as i'm getting flatulence reading past the 1st paragraph

there is also supposed to be a 2nd installment - someone please have a look

at a price of £18.99, i woud never buy it - for that money i'd expect a 1k+ pages bio of likes of churchill, hitler or stalin, written by someone of the calibre of bullock !

[dakota]

Chambers turned down a full scholarship to Harvard. Oops.

[Jon]

can someone please plough thru it & highlight any "interesting" parts

I was reluctant to part with money to get the book, but my girlfriend wanted to read it so she bought a copy. I'm about 100 pages into it at the moment. There are a few interesting tidbits in there - he dated Kelli White for a year (starting in March 2002 - I thought she was still with Boris Henry then?) and he said he also once went on a date with Kelly Holmes(!), adding something like: "She lived with a female housemate and two dogs... I could see it wasn't going to go anywhere, but I still liked her a lot, and that's why it hurt when she said the things she said about me, etc.."

There's also a pic of Conte's ZMA Track Club in there. Gaines, White, Harrison, Chambers are in the pic, along with Dai Tamesue, the Japanese 400m hurdler! I know that not everyone who had ties with Conte was on THG, but I thought that was interesting nonetheless.

But there are some major downsides. The first few chapters seem to be building up his background in such a way so that he can use it as excuses for his actions. Quite often he says the lack of a father figure was probably one of the reasons why he made such bad decisions. He also touches on racism and builds up other supposed 'life changing' moments as events that shaped his character into what he became in 2002 when he decided to start doping.

I almost closed the book two pages in, as the foreword is written by Oliver 'the twonk' Holt and of course he mentions Christine Ohuruogu within a few hundred words, writing the same kind of drivel he wrote about her in 2007. Thing is, Dwain (with the very title of the book) is trying to say that the colour of his skin is one of the reasons why he has been treated differently to other drug cheats. But then both he and Holt try to highlight the supposed 'double standards' that apply between Chambers' and Ohuruogu's cases. Erm... if he hasn't noticed, both of them are black - so if he feels he is being untreated fairly compared to other athletes who have served doping bans, then clearly it isn't a case of race. Maybe, Dwain, the public can recognise the difference between missing a few tests in an unflexible testing system and spending years loaded up on drugs.

Of course, the guy who has ghost-written it tries to argue in the preface that cheating is cheating and that 'cheats' should be treated the same across all sports, etc... I almost stopped reading then too, and I could tell it was going to be a struggle to read... not physically though - it's very simple english with big printed words and lots of spelling mistakes.

[AthleticsInBritain]

For the life of me I really, really can not see Kelly Holmes on a date with Dwain Chambers! :lol: