Cruel blow for underperforming joggers

BRITAIN'S hopes of winning any medals at this summer's Olympic Games have been dealt a blow – after the Government announced performance enhancing drugs would now be subject to VAT.

Earlier this week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned the British Olympic Association's lifetime ban for drug cheats and announced that athletes would be allowed a maximum of three tonnes of drugs per month.

That decision was welcomed by dishonest, underperforming joggers everywhere, but now the Government's VAT bombshell has had them choking on their javelins.

800-metre discus spinner Clayton Syringe said: “This is an outrageous decision. “Without my daily mix of nandrolone, Erythropoietin and Calpol, I'm so weak that I literally can't hold a paper clip.

“It's the same for most British athletes.

“I know one hurdler who's so slow without drugs, he got a £1200 fine for returning a library book nine years late.

“And he lives down the road from the library.”

Labour MP Fergus Horricks also condemned the VAT move.

He said: “We should be supporting Small and Medium Size Enterprises like Dwain Chambers.

“This punitive measure could drive the likes of Chambers and other drug cheats off to ply their drug-cheating ways in other countries.”

Drugs declined to comment.