COMMONWEALTH GAMES DOPING CONTROVERSY: THE COMMONWEALTH Games was hit by its first doping scandal yesterday. The A sample of the women's 100 metre champion, Nigeria's Oludamola Osayomi, tested positive for the stimulant methylhexaneamine. The Commonwealth Games Federation drugs panel was conducting tests on Osayomi's B sample yesterday afternoon.

She has been provisionally suspended and a decision on whether she will be stripped of her gold will be reached tomorrow. If she is then St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Natasha Mayers would take the gold and England’s Katherine Endacott would move up from bronze to silver.

Later it emerged that a second Nigerian athlete, Samuel Okon, who finished sixth in the 110 metres hurdles, had tested positive for the same drug. His B test results are expected to be announced on Thursday. A spokesman for the Nigeria Olympic Committee, Tony Ubani, confirmed it is appealing against the suspension of Osayomi.

He said the drug was in “a mineral supplement she bought over the counter in the US and brought with her. The Nigeria Olympic Committee is solidly behind her. She is one of our elite athletes and has never tested positive. She has been tested three times this year at competitions in the USA and has never tested positive.”

Ubani said that the NOC has had a meeting with the CGF and that the Games officials “are sympathetic to the Nigerian case”.

Osayomi is the reigning 100 metres champion in both the All-African Games and the African Athletics championships and was a member of the sprint relay quartet that won bronze for Nigeria at the Beijing Olympics.

Methylhexaneamine was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list this year. It is derived from geranium oil and is a common ingredient in nasal decongestants but is also used for recreational and nutritional purposes. It delays fatigue, increases awareness and helps with weight loss.

In 2009 five Jamaican athletes tested positive for it, including Lansford Spence, who won silver in the men’s 200 metres at these Games, Yohan Blake and Marvin Anderson. As the drug was not on the banned list at the time the five were initially acquitted, though all but one – Sheri-Ann Brooks – were later suspended for three months on appeal by the Jamaican drugs authority. Four Indian wrestlers who were due to be competing at the Games tested positive for the stimulant in September and were dropped from the team.

The women’s 100 metres final had already been controversial after the original winner, Australia’s Sally Pearson, was disqualified as she made her way towards the podium to receive her gold medal. She and England’s Laura Turner had jumped the gun in the second attempt to start the race, but they competed anyway.

Turner was given a red card but refused to leave the track and ran under protest and finished last. Pearson’s infringement initially went unpunished thanks to what the chairman of the CGF, Mike Fennel, described as a “major communications blunder” but she was disqualified after a protest from the English team. Pearson was back on the track last night, winning gold in the 100 metres hurdles. Guardian Service