Athletics: Drug scandal in US widens as Edwards tests positive

The doping scandal afflicting US athletics widened yesterday with the news that the world 100 metres champion, Torri Edwards, had tested positive for a banned stimulant that may render her ineligible for next month's Olympics.

The 27-year-old sprinter, who inherited her world title after it had been stripped from her compatriot Kelli White in May following an admission of doping offences, has already qualified for Athens. She finished second in the 100m at the US Olympic trials on Saturday, and was one of the favourites for the 200m starting today.

Edwards tested positive for the stimulant nikethamide at a meeting in Martinique on 24 April, the International Association of Athletics Federations confirmed yesterday. Her case will be heard on Monday by the US Anti-Doping Agency. Penalties for stimulant use range from a public warning and loss of results to a two-year suspension depending on the substance and whether the use was inadvertent.

Edwards claimed to have unknowingly taken nikethamide in a glucose tablet with which she was not familiar. The American athlete released a statement yesterday saying she had "never knowingly and intentionally misused any product or drug to gain an unfair advantage over her competitors". She did not contest the presence of the stimulant in her system.

Edwards was not the only US athlete to run into doping trouble yesterday ­ Eddy Hellebuyck tested positive for the illegal blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO) in an out-of-competition test on 30 January, the US Olympic Committee have announced. Hellebuyck finished eighth at the US Olympic Marathon trials in Birmingham, Alabama, on 7 February. The 43-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who won the Twin Cities Marathon in 2003 and was seventh in last year's Boston Marathon, is contesting the finding.

The five times Olympic champion Michael Johnson is due to learn on Sunday whether he will lose one of his gold medals as a result of the doping case involving his 400m relay team-mate Jerome Young. The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled last month that Young, the world 400m champion, should not have competed at the last Olympics because he had tested positive the previous year for the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He ran in two early rounds for the relay team in Sydney after being cleared to compete by a USA Track and Field panel.

A spokesman for the IAAF said yesterday that the world governing body had called an extraordinary meeting to decide whether to recommend disqualification for the victorious US 4x400m relay team.

"The bottom line is that when Jerome Young made the Olympic team, he had been cleared to run by USATF," Johnson said.