In a year and a week the long-awaited Commonwealth Games will finally get under way in Glasgow.

Few teams will have more attention on them at the opening ceremony than Jamaica, assuming HE is among their ranks.

He, of course, is Usain Bolt, the 100m and 200m world record holder. His presence won't make or break the Games – far from it – but he is one of the few athletes who comes close to having a global imprint. He will draw more attention to Hampden Park than even Alfredo Di Stefano and Zinedine Zidane in their primes.

Which is why the weekend's news that five of Bolt's Jamaican colleagues have failed drug tests means rather more to the Games organisers than yet another tawdry tale of cheating. Mercifully the man himself is in the clear, but a huge cloud now hangs over Jamaican athletics.

While it was the fastest human in the world this year, the American Tyson Gay, who was the headline name, those of Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson aren't so shabby either. Powell is Bolt's 100m world record predecessor and the third fastest man in the world in 2013. Simpson was a 4x100m relay silver medallist for Jamaica at the London Olympics. Both tested positive for Oxilofrine after giving samples at the national trials last month.

To an extent we have become inured to such scandals, especially in athletics and cycling. When Powell says "I am not now – nor have I ever been – a cheat" he may be proved correct in the fullness of time. Let's hope so, but in the wake of Lance Armstrong's protestations of innocence over many years there won't be too many prepared to give Powell or any of the others the benefit of the doubt.

Given that in London the Jamaicans dominated the athletics sprints events, they would be expected to clean up in Glasgow where, of course, there will be no American opposition. Powell wasn't a member of the men's 4x100m relay squad which won gold at the Olympic Stadium, but if he and Simpson are banned it is bound to have an effect on a team which looks as if it might have another three athletes in the frame.

None of Jamaica's marquee names, including Bolt, was at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi but all the indications up until last weekend were that the Caribbean island intended to send a strong side to Glasgow where, among other considerations, the preparations for the Games are at an advanced stage, in complete contrast to India three years ago.

It is too early yet to know if the weekend's positive tests will cast a wider stain over the Jamaican team, but they have already hugely damaged the credibility of the elite end of sprinting. A sport which has had to endure the spectacular falls of Ben Johnson, Marion Jones and others now has Gay, Powell and Simpson under heavy suspicion.

That the scandal touches so close to Bolt is particularly uncomfortable for athletics. This is the one man, above all, who has restored people's faith in the sport, so the news that five Jamaicans have tested positive can only undermine that tenuous belief.

Neither Gay nor Powell will run in the World Championships in Moscow next month, so while that leaves the field clear for Bolt to add to his already formidable gold medal tally it also makes the spectacle considerably less compelling. Yet even in these circumstances there is usually a silver lining. It has already been noted that the British sprinter James Dasaolu now has the second fastest time of those competing in Moscow, following his 9.91 seconds time in the UK trials on Saturday.

Further revelations could also make winning a medal more achievable for clean athletes in Glasgow, but the inevitable reaction is one of sadness that the Jamaican side could now be shed of two or more of its top stars while, in the much wider picture, athletics has once more been plunged into shame by some of its best-known practitioners.

Neil Black, the performance director of UK Athletics, has described the positive tests of Gay and Powell as a "tragedy" for athletics, but if that is another example of the frequent misuse of the word, the sport has undoubtedly been badly shaken. Gay has already had his sponsorship suspended by adidas and there are likely to be further sanctions.

The reality, though, is that the damage will be short term. The public has become so used to drug-taking by top athletes and cyclists, in particular, that many now consider it to be the norm. As usual, the real victims are the clean sportsmen and women who are tainted by association.