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May 18, 2016

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31 athletes caught by Beijing retests

RETESTING of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics has caught 31 athletes in six sports from 12 countries. Other positive doping cases could emerge from the 2012 London Games, the International Olympic Committee said yesterday.

The IOC has opened disciplinary proceedings against the unidentified athletes who competed in Beijing and were planning to take part in the Rio de Janeiro Games in August.

The positive cases emerged from the retesting of 454 samples from Beijing with “the very latest scientific analysis methods,” the IOC said.

It stores samples for 10 years to allow for retesting with improved techniques.

The IOC said it would inform the relevant national Olympic committees in coming days.

“All those athletes infringing anti-doping rules will be banned from competing at the Olympic Games” in Rio, the IOC said after a teleconference meeting of its policy-making executive board.

Results of retesting of 250 samples from the London Olympics will be announced shortly, the IOC said. Those tests were also aimed at athletes planning to compete in Rio.

The IOC said it would also undertake a “wider retesting program” of medalists from both the Beijing and London Games. Samples of athletes who could be promoted to medals following disqualification of cheats will also be retested.

The IOC has also asked the World Anti-Doping Agency to launch a “fully-fledged investigation” into allegations that the drug-testing system at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi was subverted by Russian officials.

The IOC said it would ask the Lausanne anti-doping lab and WADA to proceed with analyzing Sochi samples “in the most sophisticated and efficient way possible.”

Grigory Rodchenkov, former head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory, told the New York Times last week he switched tainted urine samples for clean ones for Russian athletes who were part of a state-sponsored doping program.

The statute of limitations for retesting was extended in 2015 from eight to 10 years, meaning the Beijing samples remain valid through 2018.

It’s not the first time samples from Beijing have been retested. A few months after the Games, the IOC reanalyzed nearly 1,000 of the total of 4,000 samples with a new test for the blood-boosting drug CERA. Five athletes were caught, including 1,500-meter gold medalist Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain.

Nearly 500 doping samples from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin have already been retested. The IOC has not disclosed whether those had produced any positive cases.

Five athletes were caught in retests of samples from the 2004 Athens Olympics.




 

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