There had already been controversy about her appearance in the 10,000 metres in Beijing after she was asked to carry out a 2,000 metres time-trial the day before her 10,000m race because performance director Dave Collins wanted to check that she was fit.

But now in an interview published today in the Bristol Evening Post she has claimed that only hours before the proposed fitness test she was also asked to take a drugs test, and had her bags searched on suspicion that she had been taking morphine, a banned drug, to mask her calf muscle injury.

She told her local newspaper: "I was an emotional wreck that day, and if I had not had my mobile phone and been able to talk to my parents, I don't know what I would have done.

Reed said her injury problem started after her flight to the UK Athletics pre-Games training camp in Macau and initially she feared she was suffering from deep vain thrombosis (DVT).

 

She was reduced to running barefoot on grass and the injury flared up again when she travelled to Beijing.

Reed said: "It was then that I was accused of attempting to cover up the injury and was subjected to what I feel was not only humiliating, but because of its timing so close to the biggest race of my life, totally demoralising.

"I just broke down and could not stop crying as I was being made to feel like a pariah.

"Dave Collins and one of the UKA doctors asked me to take a drug test, despite the fact that I had been randomly tested six times before we left the UK for Macau, presumably because they suspected I was using some illegal pain-killers to cover up my injury.

"But then what upset me even more was that it was arranged for two BOA (British Olympic Association) officials to search my room, but they obviously found nothing incriminating as I had nothing to hide.

"Even this apparently did not convince Dave Collins as he then came up to my room and took away all my supplements and medication.

"Eventually I asked for a second medical opinion from one of the BOA doctors, which I understood was within my rights, and realising my predicament and mental state he was sympathetic enough to give me a local anaesthetic injection before the time-trial.

"As a result, and with the encouragement of some of my GB team-mates, I had no trouble completing the time-trial satisfactorily and was finally given permission to race the next day, when with the reassurance of another similar injection an hour before the start I never felt anything during the race itself.

"Obviously I had lost my fitness edge due to being unable to do some of the training sessions my coach had planned for me in Macau, so I was naturally disappointed that I could not match my best time in Beijing.

"But to be honest I was hardly in the right frame of mind for what was the most important race of my life after what I had been put through.

"It's an experience that I never want to suffer again.

"I just feel the way I was treated was unfair so close to the race.

"It was devastating at the time.

"Still, I have certainly learnt a lesson from it all and hope I am stronger for it, though it was certainly not the end to my Olympic dream I had imagined."

The newspaper said that Collins, who was sacked as performance director on Monday, and UK Athletics had refused to comment.

The full article can be read at http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/athletics/KATE-BEIJING-MISERY/article-301014-detail/article.html.