posted Mar 31, 2008

For an elite athlete with hopes of going to (i believe) his first and potentially last Olympics, why has Dwain Chambers decided to join Castleford?

He risks serious injury from a sport he knows extremely little about. Attempting a tackle is a skill that takes years to perfect by professionals and think of when he gets tackled by the hard hitters in the league. An injury sustained now may not be fully healed for when trials come about for the GB team.

I think if he has serious hopes of being in that GB team - regardless of whether or not he deserves to be in it - this decision is a poor one.

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posted Mar 31, 2008

He'll be lucky, if the stories coming out from the british swimming & cycling camps are anything to go by tickets will be in very short supply

The comments at the press conference must have really infuriated any RL fans and players. If he walks onto the pitch on sunday he will be going off on a stretcher!

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posted Mar 31, 2008

1 olympics : LET HIM RUN.

2 Rugby : judge him on his performances.

Nuff said

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posted Mar 31, 2008

STFCAAD

Couldn't have put it better myself.

There is no room in sports for anyone who have used a banned substance. I wonder if he would have continued to use a banned substance if he hadn't been caught

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posted Apr 1, 2008

British Athletics half openned the door to him. Legally he has everything on his side.

You can't inflict more punishment on a guy, if he has done nothing else wrong.

If he qualifys, they will have to take him.

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posted Apr 2, 2008

This notion of Chambers entering the super league is absurd. A sport he has never played before; he expects to just take it up in 1 MONTH and get on the team sheet.

Rugby League is a highly technical sport and takes years to learn. I fear it is too late for Chambers to take this up (29 years!)with out any experience + being thrown in at the deep end, possibly against St Helens. Castleford must be desparate.

Best of luck to him but dont put your money on him.

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posted Apr 2, 2008

I'm just astonished he's in the initial squad, to be honest. I'm not sure what that says about his rugby talents, or Castleford's lack of them...

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posted Apr 2, 2008

Strange decision but guess he has to earn a living from somewhere. Remember he has got the experience of American Football which is a pretty physical game, he had very good hands and supposedly a very good sidestep. He must also have taken some pretty big hits so you never know!

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posted Apr 2, 2008

Rugby League is a very skillfull sport and the odds are definitely against Dwain Chambers making it in the sport as many people have said.

However it is very naive to say he has no chance as there is a history of athletes who've gone on to make it in rugby. If you're an athlete then you will certainly have a lot of the qualities needed to make it in rugby league or union. Below are just some of the athlete-rugby converts I can think of, I'm sure there's probably more:

Donald Bailey (100m Olympic Bronze Medal) went on to play Rugby League for Leigh.

Berwyn Jones (European 100m Relay Bronze Medal) went on to play Rugby League for Wakefield and Great Britain.

JJ Williams (Commonwealth Games sprinter) went on to play Rugby Union for Wales and the British Lions.

Nigel Walker (110m Olympic hurdler) went on to play Rugby Union for Wales very late on in his career.

As for having no rugby background only a few years ago Tom James was an up and coming British athlete after only taking rugby up a few years ago he is already a Welsh International in Rugby Union.

So it is not against the realms of possibility that Dwain Chambers could make it!

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