Tom Yule, the Scottish weight-lifter who chairs the athletes' commission which helped bring the Commonwealth Games to Glasgow, has learned he may be awarded a Commonwealth Games medal 19 months after the event.

Australia's questionable policy of signing competitors with medal potential from the former Soviet Union has back-fired spectacularly with the belated conviction of Armenian Aleksan Karapetyan, who won gold in the 94-kilo category for them at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March last year.

Karapetyan signed up under an Oz flag of convenience and collected thousands of dollars in grants, provoking uproar because this was denied to home Australian athletes. Yet it has transpired he was charged with a doping offence in the US, for using a stimulant nine months before the Commonwealth Games.

When that charge came to light, and he was prosecuted, Karapetyan was finally suspended from March 22 2006, the day after winning his Commonwealth gold. But he had retired the day before. The rules state that he should have been sanctioned for two years from the date of that offence, in July 2005. But it's argued that the stimulant he used conferred no subsequent lasting benefit.

Now the Court of Arbitration for Sport has been approached, with a view to having the Armenian-born lifter's suspension properly applied. This would mean his suspension being dated back to 2005, and his gold medal deemed forfeit.

Karapetyan returned to Armenia the day after winning his gold medal, and according to Australian sources, has never been back down under.

Now the silver medallist, Simon Heffernan - ironically also Australian, and denied any support while funding was lavished on the incomer - hopes to be promoted to gold. The Scottish bronze medallist, Yule, would be promoted to silver, and a New Zealander to bronze.

Yule, who stood on the podium clutching his months-old son, Randall, in front of his family, said last night that he was "frustrated and bemused".

He learned of the situation from Heffernan. "I'm happy now to allow the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland to look after things, but a silver medal through the post is not the same as receiving it on the day, in front of the world in Melbourne. I don't dwell on it, because it would only upset me."

More pertinently, he says, it could have affected the outcome of the contest.

Heffernan beat him by just five kilos. "Karapetyan was miles in front of us. I trained alongside him all week before the Games. It's not being defeatist. I knew he would beat me comfortably, but my psychology would have been very different if I'd known the gold was between me and Steve."

Yule, who was the only GB lifter at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, is attempting to qualify for Beijing next year. He has an honours degree from Oxford, and a Ph.d in biomechanics. He is strength coach at the English Institute of Sport at Loughborough, where he works with track and field athletes. He also has his eyes on the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

He and his twin, Stuart, have both competed in the Games. They were born in South Africa. Both parents competed for Scotland, mum Heather as a shot putter in 1970, while dad Tom lifted in 1974.

The family returned to Scotland when they were months old, but when Tom was at university in England, because he hadn't been born in Scotland, he was declared ineligible to lift for them in the Games. So while his brother was lifting for Scotland in the 1998 Commonwealth event, Tom won medals for England. Now the rules have been changed, and he lifted and medalled for Scotland in 2002 and 2006.

His next medal should soon be in the post.