Team manager Ian Forbes warned that Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser and Powell will be dropped from Jamaica's team for the World Championships, which open in Berlin on Saturday, unless they turn up.

 

The other athletes who have failed to turn up at the camp in Nuremberg are 400m hurdles Olympic gold medalist Melaine Walker, hurdler Brigitte Foster-Hylton and sprinter Shericka Williams.

 

All the athletes are members of the Maximising Velocity Power (MVP) Track Club and are coached by Stephen Francis.

 

Among the athletes already at the camp are triple Olympic champion Usain Bolt.

 

Forbes' tough stance was supported by Howard Aris, the President of Jamaica's Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA).

 

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) is reportedly insisting that all athletes selected should attend the camp for, several reasons, including providing urine and blood samples for drug testing.

 

Aris said: "I wrote to [the athletes agent] Paul Doyle telling him what the IAAF wanted to do.

 

"When we [the JAAA] called to find out where the athletes were going to be staying, we were told that they would be going straight to Berlin.
 

"I told Doyle that the camp was mandatory, and if they don’t go to the camp, they could not compete."

 

But Doyle is insisting that the athletes will not travel to the camp and wants them to be allowed to concentrate on their preparations for Berlin without the row distracting them.

 

He said: “I have not been notified by anyone at the JAAA as to the athletes being cancelled from competing in Berlin.

 

"The MVP athletes have prepared as best they can for the World Championships, they are arriving [in Berlin] today with the intention of competing at the best of their abilities.

 

"Every one of the athletes in question intend to medal.

 

"All of this athletes are entered to the World Championships and this information could close the situation and discussions related to their no-show at Jamaican official training camp in Nurnberg."

 

A similar row blew up before the Olympics in Beijing last year when Powell and Fraser complained that they had to attend the camp in Tianjin, China, when they wanted to continue training at their European base in Italy.

 

When they were ordered to do so, Powell and his MVP colleagues hit back by refusing to take part in relay practice.
 

The row will be watched closely by a number of cities in Britain, including Birmingham and Glasgow, which is trying to persuade Jamaica to base themselves there before London 2012.