Athletics: Melissa Price Tests Positive for Thg

Britain found itself unwittingly dragged into another doping scandal last night after the wife of the UK shot-put record holder Carl Myerscough became the latest athlete revealed to have tested positive for the new designer anabolic steroid THG.

Melissa Price faces a minimum two-year ban after it emerged she had tested positive for tetrahydrogestrinone following her first victory in the United States championships last June.

Price was also positive for the steroid a few weeks later in an out-of competition test. She denied taking THG.

The 24-year-old, a former weightlifter, and Myerscough married in June after meeting up as students at Nebraska University. He served his own two-year ban, which expired in 2002, after testing positive for a cocktail of steroids in 1999. He claimed he was the victim of sabotage by someone he refuses to identify.

Myerscough has threatened to switch nationalities to the US if he is barred from representing Britain in Athens this summer because of a British Olympic Association bylaw that bans drug offenders from the games.

The 24-year-old from Blackpool, 6ft 10in and 24st, last year threw a British record of 21.92m, the second best in the world in 2003, and would be among the favourites for an Olympic gold medal.

The only man to throw further than Myerscough last year was Kevin Toth, who is one of three other American athletes to have tested positive for THG.

The others are the world indoor 1500m champion Regina Jacobs and the hammer thrower John McEwen. The only non-American athlete to have tested positive for THG is Britain's Dwain Chambers. The European 100m champion and record holder is to have a hearing next month.

A federal jury is investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in San Francisco, which the US Anti-Doping Agency believes to be the source of the drug.

Athletes involved in the Balco scandal claim they are being victimised by organisers of America's biggest indoor meetings, although none has been officially sanctioned.

Skip Stolley, meeting director of the Millrose Games in New York on February 6, has refused to invite certain athletes, such as the sprinter Chryste Gaines, who is linked to Balco and who has tested positive for the stimulant modafinil. Stolley said he feared her presence would "engender a complete rehash of the events".

"Everything is a chain reaction and we have a period of McCarthyism in sport now," said Remi Korchemny, who coaches Gaines and Chambers.

Chambers is not eligible to compete as he is suspended by UK Athletics pending his hearing. But New York appears to be operating double standards because it has invited the triple Olympic champion Marion Jones and her partner, the world 100m record holder Tim Montgomery, to compete despite their past association with Balco which led to the pair being subpoenaed to give evidence to the federal jury in November.