Chambers: 200m injury woe

"Think about the rev counter on a car," explains Brown.

"You want to get as close to that red line as possible, but if you go a little bit too far there's a danger of the engine blowing up.

"If you don't push it far enough, you're going to be beaten because all your competitors will have taken it further.

"The competition program is also very crowded, especially with the Worlds now every two years.

"With the Olympics being so late last year, the athletes have had very little time off for regeneration.

"Sometimes an athlete should plan to take a year off from competition, like Cathy Freeman has.

"It was a very enlightened attitude to take, and I think that sometimes our younger guys should think about doing that."

In the case of some athletes - decathlon bronze medallist Macey included - Brown has to let them compete when traditional medical advice would rule them out.

"We are not over-conservative. We will give the go-ahead for athletes to compete when they're carrying an injury," he says.

"When it comes to an Olympics or World Championships - when an athlete has otherwise prepared extremely hard for it - even if there is a risk that the injury might be made worse, you might give the go-ahead to compete.

We have a very holistic approach - we will use homeopathic and herbal treatments.

Malcolm Brown

Thomas: Sick of injury

Medical evidence suggests that Richardson unwittingly took the banned steroid in a supplement that was supposed to be clean.

"We ask each athlete to have their supplements checked," says Brown.

"We'll go through each one and not only look at the list of ingredients, but look at the manufacturer.

"The supplements industry is not at all well regulated, and we have more confidence in some manufacturers than others."

The team's preparations were hit by the withdrawal through injury of medal hopes Darren Campbell and Katharine Merry before the squad even left for Canada.

There was little that could be done in the case of either athlete, but UK Athletics does have a screening program designed to spot potential problems before they occur.

British team head Max Jones backs up Brown's belief that more money needs to be spent on sports medicine in the UK.

"We want to stop athletes from getting injured, but when they do we need for them to get the best treatment as quickly as possible," he says.

"I have just employed a full-time physio but everyone else is part-time. They do a fantastic job and are all highly talented, but it is no way to run a world class performance plan.

"Athens is only three years away and if we continue just talking, we will have the same problem that we have had here, with people who could have won medals sitting at home watching it on television."