British sprinter Dwain Chambers says in his autobiography he was a "walking junkie" with so many drugs in his luggage that he feared being arrested while going through airport security in Miami.
Chambers, who served a two-year ban for doping from 2003-05, details his drug use in the book "Race Against Me: My Story," which is set to go on sale next Monday.
In an excerpt printed in Monday's edition of the Daily Mail, Chambers says he was scared of being arrested at Miami International Airport.
"There were enough drugs in there to kill an elephant and I didn't have a clue whether they were legal or not. I was a walking junkie," Chambers writes. "I had tubes of stuff that were known only to me as 'The Clear' and 'The Cream,' along with a few bottles of EPO and HGH, which were in ice packs as they needed to be kept cool."
Chambers, the first athlete with connections to BALCO founder Victor Conte to test positive for the previously undetectable steroid THG, says he started using "The Clear" and other drugs after meeting Conte in 2002.
"He said I had the potential to be a gold medalist, he could make me the fastest man in the world. He put me at ease, explaining the benefits of a new designer drug, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG)," Chambers writes. "The devil was sowing the seeds for my conversion to the dark side of athletics: a world of deceit and lying."
Chambers won a bronze medal in the 100m at the 1999 world championships, but he failed to finish in the top three at the 2000 Sydney Olympics or the 2001 worlds in Edmonton.
"What were the Americans doing that I wasn't?" Chambers asks in the book. "I'd given my heart and soul to the sport and hadn't come anywhere near a medal position. I'd trained every day of my life since I was a small boy, but I wasn't progressing. I was desperate."
After going to the United States in 2002 to train, Chambers met Conte, whom he called an "impressive, confident man." Conte was eventually convicted and served time in jail for dealing steroids in the biggest doping scandal in the United States.
Chambers tested positive for THG in 2003 and was banned for two years, but he returned to running and won a gold medal with Britain in the 4x100 relay at the 2006 European Championships.
In 2007, Chambers tried playing American football but he returned to sprinting after the league folded and won a silver medal in the 60m at the 2008 indoor worlds. He tried to get his lifetime Olympic ban revoked ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games, but he was not successful.
Chambers is due to compete for Britain this weekend at the European indoor championships in Turin, Italy, and plans to run at this summer's world championships in Berlin.
(Agencies via Shanghai Daily March 4, 2009)
