BERLIN, August 12, 2009 (AFP) - Former world record holder Asafa Powell and women's 100m Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser will now be allowed to run at the world athletics championships after a dramatic U-turn by Jamaican officials on Wednesday.

The pair, along with four other team-mates, were re-instated to run after the Jamaican Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) had earlier barred them from competing at the championships from August 15-23 at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

The JAAA had written to the sport's governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), insisting the six were barred, but the IAAF then intervened forcing the Jamaicans into an embarrassing change of mind.

"We wanted to protect the quality of the world champinships," said IAAF secretary president Pierre Weiss.

"That was an unnecessary action by the Jamaican delegation, we didn't like that at all. We would rather these matters were resolved by conversation."

Powell and Fraser, as well as Olympic 400m hurdle champion Melaine Walker, hurdlers Kaliese Spencer and Brigitte Foster-Hylton and 400m sprinter Shericka Williams, will now be allowed to race.

The group, who are all part of the Maximising Velocity Power (MVP) training group, had been punished by the team directors because they refused to train with the main body of the team in Nuremberg, Germany.

Instead they stayed with their coach Stephen Francis at their Italian training camp in Lignano Sabbiadoro.

"We did not know that we were obliged to join the training camp," said Powell's manager Paul Doyle earlier.

The episode has added to the turbulent build-up to the championships for the Jamaicans whose sprinters virtually swept all before them at last year's Olympic Games.

Five athletes failed a dope test but were subsequently cleared by their national anti-doping commission.