It follows the row that nearly ruined Jamaica's preparations for the World Championships in Berlin last month when a number of top athletes, including Olympic gold medallists Asafa Powell, Shelly-Ann Fraser and Melanie Walker, were suspended after they failed to show up at a pre-Games training camp in Nuremberg.

It was only after the intervention of Lamine Diack, the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), on the eve of the Championships that the ban was lifted.

Fraser, Brigitte Foster-Hylton and Walker then went on to win the 100 metres, 100m hurdles and 400m hurdles respectively and Powell anchored the 4x100m relay squad to victory in the Olympiastadion to cap a remarkable Championship for Jamaican athletes as they finished second overall behind only the United States with a total of 13 medals, seven of which were gold.

But the six athletes, who also included Shericka Williams and Kaliese Spencer, still face the threat of disciplinary action.

It followed a similar incident on the eve of the Olympics in Beijing last year when the same group of athletes, all coached by Stephen Francis, refused to travel to a pre-Games training camp in Tianjin, China, because they wanted to finish their preparations in Italy.

The Jamaican Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA) are now keen to avoid a similar scenario before London 2012 after they clinched a high-profile deal with Birmingham City Council to base themselves in the Midlands before the Olympics.

The agreement was signed after Mike Whitby (pictured), the Leader of Birmingham City Council, travelled to Berlin to meet Jamaican officials and Usain Bolt, who won three gold medals at the World Championships in the German capital, setting world records in the 100m and 200m.

Howard Aris, the President of the JAAA, said:  "We are hoping the difficulties we faced this year, following up on last year in Beijing, will be minimised and we are trying to see how best we can do two things.
 

"One is continue to interact with athletes and coaches to seek common ground, as we did on this occasion by speaking to coach [Glen] Mills [who coaches Bolt] and coach Francis and [athletes manager] Don Quarrie.

"We will continue that.
 

"And we also would want to hope that the rules of the JAAA will be respected, and if there are difficulties, we have mechanisms available to deal with them without making them a public spectacle.

"We were satisfied that the argument put forward by President Diack to allow the athletes to compete and not to use the World Championships, I am quoting him, 'As a means for sanction'."

Aris claimed the absence of the athletes from the camp could have sent the wrong signal to the IAAF, as the JAAA had earlier informed them that all athletes would attend the camp and be available for out-of-competition drugs testing.

The JAAA are now considering whether to pursue the threat of taking sanctions against the athletes and a special committee under Jamaica's former Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe has been set-up to decide what action to take.
 

The committee also includes Jamaica's former Attorney General and Queen's Counsel Winston Spaulding, and former Chief of Staff of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), Major General John Simmonds. 

Aris said: "Once it [the report] goes to the executive, the executive will take a decision and if it is necessary for it to go to the disciplinary panel it will then go." 


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