UK Athletics has been rocked by its third drug case in the space of a month after it was announced on Friday that Callum Priestley, one of the country’s most promising young prospects for the London Olympics, had tested positive for the banned drug clenbuterol.
The 21-year-old, who is ranked No 3 in Britain in the 110 metres hurdles and who won a bronze medal at last year’s European Under-23 Championships, has been provisionally suspended after testing positive in an out-of-competition drug test in South Africa in January.
The Leicester athlete, who is a member of the Woodford Green and Essex Ladies club, was attending a warm-weather training camp organised by the governing body.
The news comes less than a month after it was confirmed that two young British shot putters, Kieren Kelly and Jamie Stevenson, had been charged with a doping offence after refusing to take an out-of-competition drug test during a training day in Loughborough.
Like the two throwers, Priestley will now have the opportunity to defend himself at a disciplinary hearing. If found guilty of a doping violation, he faces an automatic two-year ban and, under the British Olympic Association’s bylaw, a lifetime ban from the Olympic Games.
The announcement of three drug cases in such quick succession is a setback for UK Athletics, which had enjoyed an unblemished record since Christine Ohuruogu was banned for one year in 2006 for missing three random tests.
The last case of an elite British athlete failing a drug test was Dwain Chambers’ positive test for THG in 2003 as the BALCO scandal unravelled.
Niels de Vos, the UK Athletics chief executive, said: “I am hugely disappointed that there has been a failed test. UKA continues to give 100 per cent support to the work of UK Anti-Doping and we maintain our full commitment to drug-free sport.”
Priestley, a former county-level footballer, was elevated to second-tier ‘development’ Lottery funding by UK Athletics in December after a series of impressive performances last year.
He finished runner-up behind Andy Turner in the 110m hurdles at the Aviva World Trials and UK Championships in Birmingham, beating the highly regarded William Sharman, and he also ran a personal best of 13.56sec in Loughborough.
Last month he continued his progress by winning the 60m hurdles at the World Indoor trials in Sheffield and he set a lifetime best of 7.68sec at the Birmingham Games – just 0.03sec outside the qualifying standard for next week’s World Indoor Championships in Doha.
Tests carried out on two urine samples provided by the athlete confirmed the presence of clenbuterol, a drug used for the treatment of asthma but which is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency because of its ability to reduce body fat and therefore enhance athletic performance.
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