Price Tests Positive for THG

Melissa Price, the U.S. women’s champion in the hammer throw, tested positive last summer for THG -- the fourth American track and field athlete to test positive for the designer steroid.

Price, 24, who was born in Orange and graduated from Anaheim Loara High but went to college at Nebraska and lives now in Lincoln, tested positive twice for THG, once at the U.S. championships in June at Stanford and again a few weeks later at an out-of-competition test. Through her attorney, she issued a statement denying wrongdoing.

Her winning throw at the U.S. championships -- 230 feet 9 inches -- marked a personal best by nearly nine feet. She finished 12th in August at the world championships in Paris.

Price in June married Carl Myerscough, a British shotput standout. He failed a 1999 doping test -- according to news accounts, he tested positive for two steroids and for the hormone testosterone -- and served a two-year ban before returning to the track. Under the rules of the British Olympic Assn., Myerscough remains permanently ineligible for the Olympic Games.

Three other U.S. athletes, and British sprinter Dwain Chambers, tested positive last year for THG. The three other Americans, identified in news accounts: shotputter Kevin Toth, hammer thrower John McEwen and distance runner Regina Jacobs.

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced the discovery by scientists at UCLA of THG, or tetrahydrogestrinone. A federal grand jury in San Francisco is investigating Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, believed by USADA to be the source of THG. The Burlingame lab’s founder, Victor Conte, has denied wrongdoing.

A number of athletes, including San Francisco Giant slugger Barry Bonds, have been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury. A subpoena is merely a request for information and does not indicate misconduct.

“I have never taken THG,” Price said in a statement issued late Monday by her attorney, Howard Jacobs of Westlake Village. “I have never met Victor Conte or even heard of him, and have never taken any products from BALCO. I therefore have no idea how or why I tested positive, as I understand that USADA believes that THG came from Victor Conte and BALCO.”

On Dec. 30, sports authorities confirmed that six U.S. athletes had tested positive last season for the stimulant modafinil and a seventh, cyclist Adham Sbeih, had tested positive for the synthetic hormone EPO. McEwen, authorities said, had tested positive for modafinil and THG, the others positive solely for modafinil -- sprinters Kelli White and Chrystie Gaines and hurdlers Sandra Glover, Chris Phillips and Eric Thomas.

Modafinil is a prescription drug used to treat the sleeping disorder narcolepsy. It remains unclear why it surfaced at last summer’s elite track meets.