IOC finds 23 positives in retesting of samples

rules will be banned from competing at the Olympic Games” in Rio, it said.

The IOC said the retests were carried out using “the very latest scientific analysis methods.”

Wo r l d Anti-Doping Agency president Craig Reedie said the results showed the system of saving drug samples for later retesting works.

“The discovery of 23 positives shows the effectiveness of new methods and modern science,” Reedie told The Associated Press. “So athletes be warned. If you were cheating and thought you got away with it, you will be caught.”

The IOC retested 454 samples from Beijing. Of those original 31 positives, the Russian Olympic Committee confirmed that 14 involved Russian athletes. Russian state TV said they included 10 medallists, among them high jumper Anna Chicherova. She won the bronze medal in Beijing and went on to take gold in London.

Match TV said 11 of the 14 athletes from Beijing were from track and field, including 4x100-metre relay gold medallist Yulia Chermoshanskaya.

Spanish hurdler Josephine Onyia has been identified in Spain as being one of the athletes whose samples from Beijing was positive.

The new positives come just over two months before the Rio Olympics and with Russia at the centre of statesponsored doping allegations.

The World Anti-Doping Agency is investigating claims by Moscow’s former anti-doping lab director, Grigory Rodchenkov, that he ran an organized doping program for Russian athletes and swapped out their tainted samples for clean ones during the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

The IAAF, meanwhile, is set to decide on June 17 whether to maintain or lift its suspension of Russia’s track and field athletes from global competition. Russia has argued it would be unfair to ban its entire team from the Rio Olympics, but critics say evidence of systematic, state-backed doping should be enough to keep them out.

Including the new retest results, the total number of doping cases for the past two Summer Olympics has soared to 32 for London and 57 for Beijing. The previous high for a single Olympics was 26 cases from the 2004 Athens Games, according to IOC statistics.