Athletics: Dwain Chambers claims he has been made to "feel like a leper" on returning from a drugs test, while double Olympic champion Sebastian Coe insists it is too late for the disgraced sprinter to seek redemption and re-establish himself as a role model.
The 29-year-old won his battle to be part of the British team at next month's World Indoor Championships in Valencia even though the UK Athletics selection committee were "unanimous in their desire not to select him".
Chambers was banned for two years after testing positive for the designer steroid THG in 2003 but has since made his return to the sport and on Sunday won the 60 metres trial race at Sheffield which should have automatically guaranteed him a place on the team for Spain.
UKA, in the face of the threat of legal action, begrudgingly selected him but made a point of stating their objections.
Chambers has now hit back, saying: "I'm being made to feel like a leper. A terrible stigma has been attached to me but people need to know I am clean.
"Yes, I did something wrong. I did the crime - but I've done my time and now I've moved on. Other people are allowed to get on with their lives once they have served a punishment - so why can't I get on with mine?
"I'm only doing what I'm legally entitled to do. If the law forbade me from running, I wouldn't be doing it."
Coe, head of the 2012 London Olympics, is uneasy with his inclusion in the British squad and claims Chambers has missed the chance to reinvent himself.
The sprinter had made a failed attempt to play American football, both in the United States and in Europe, and also claimed in an interview last May there will always be athletes using performance-enhancing drugs.
"Two years ago Dwain was selected for the European Championships in Gothenburg," said Coe. "You could only conclude from what he later said in an interview, and from his appearance in American football, that he had turned his back on the sport.
"It would have been better had that year spent in American football been used to go into schools to explain why what he did was unhelpful to the sport. It's difficult for him to become a role model now. I don't think you reach redemption by being selected for the next available championships.
"You have to put a bit back in. I would have had more sympathy with the rehabilitation argument a few years ago but now there is no ambiguity about this. This is not arcane maritime law where someone is straying into contested waters and there's an argument about who owns them.
"The law has always been clear cut, and now more than ever."
UK Athletics performance director Dave Collins and his team made it abundantly clear that but for Chambers clearly matching the criteria of winning a medal or being a finalist in Valencia, they would not have picked him.
The UKA statement said: "Taking him to the World Indoors deprives young, upwardly mobile committed athletes of this key development opportunity."
"Unfortunately, the committee felt that the selection criteria pertaining to the winner of the trials, coupled with the manner of Dwain's performance, left them no room to take any other decision."
His runaway victory in Sheffield made him an automatic selection unless UKA found "exceptional circumstances" for not picking him.
They could not and Collins admitted: :"All other things apart, he performed well at the weekend. There was a clear argument to take him and he could fetch home a medal."
But the road ahead for Chambers will be difficult with almost every top European promoter expected to refuse drug cheats entry to their meetings this year.