LONDON, 14 January 2004 — US women’s hammer champion Melissa Price has become the fourth American track and field athlete to test positive for the designer steroid THG, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
The report said Price, 24, had tested positive at last June’s American championships and again in an out-of-competition test.
In a statement issued through her lawyer Price denied ever taking THG (tetrahydrogestrinone), which was discovered in a Los Angeles laboratory last year.
Britain’s European 100 meters champion Dwain Chambers has tested positive for the steroid. According to US news reports shot putter Kevin Toth, hammer thrower John McEwen and middle distance runner Regina Jacobs have also tested positive.
Price is married to British shot putter Carl Myerscough, who has served a two-year ban for failing a drugs test.
Anti-Doping Chief Pound Probes Rusedski Case
In London, World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound has come to the support of Greg Rusedski in his fight to clear his name of doping.
Pound admitted that tennis officials would find it hard to ban the Briton if the player could prove his positive test for the steroid nandrolone had resulted from a supplement given to him by ATP trainers. “If it is established that it was somebody acting on behalf of the ATP — if this was policy — then it is very hard for the same organization to do anything about it,” Pound told the London Evening Standard. Rusedksi has claimed he should not have been charged because in the last 16 months 46 other players on the ATP Tour have been found to have had elevated nandrolone levels.
Last year the ATP dropped charges against seven of them after it was discovered the higher levels may have been caused by ATP trainers providing the players with the supplements in the form of tablets and drinks.
The other 39 were not charged because their nandrolone levels, while higher than usual, were below the legal limit.
Rusedski is to face an ATP tribunal at Montreal on Feb. 9.
Police Raid Cofidis Headquarters in Doping Case
In Paris, French police searched the headquarters of Cofidis in northern France and the office of one of their doctors on Monday as part of a doping inquiry, the manager of the cycling team said yesterday.
“The police arrived at 1600 (1500 GMT) on Monday and left our headquarters at 2130 (2030 GMT),” Alain Bondue told Reuters.
“They told me they were investigating a case of doping similar to the Festina affair (...) They did not find any banned products but seized the medical files of some of our riders in the office of doctor Jean-Jacques Menuet.” According to the French sports daily L’Equipe, who reported the raid yesterday, Menuet also has dealings with several French athletes including Christine Arron and Muriel Hurtis.
But the newspaper added that the inquiry did not concern the 4x100 meters relay world champions.
