Mumbai, Jan 15 Former Olympic and world sprint champion Gail Devers wants drug cheats to be barred from continuing their career in sports and should not given a second chance as is the norm currently.

" There should be zero tolerance to drugs in sports. By zero tolerance I mean that if you are caught (doping) you don&apost get a second chance and your name gets erased from all records. It&aposs as if you never existed,"said Devers at a media conference here today.

The former American sprint queen, who overcame the debilitating Graves&aposdisease affliction in 1988 before the Seoul Games and went on to pick up the 100m sprint gold four years later in Barcelona and repeated it in 1996 at Atlanta, is here with her family as Brand Ambassador of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon to be held this Sunday.

" Taking (performance-enhancing) drugs is a big no-no. Banning them for two years (for first time offence) is just a slap on the wrist. They can then come back and avail of new technology and continue to cheat. It should not be allowed,"she said.

"(My wish is) Once caught you are gone and we don&apost even know you existed anymore", said the 42-year-old mother of two daughters who won the 100m hurdles title too at Barcelona.

Devers, who won the 100m sprint as well as the 100m hurdles in the 1993 Stuttgart World Championships, described the case of her American successor in sprints, the drug-tainted Marion Jones, as"very sad".

"We should not compromise our integrity. We also should educate our children (about drug abuse),"she said.