More cheating athletes exposed

FORTY-FIVE athletes have failed drug tests after their samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics were reanalysed.

The results were from a second wave of retests and have taken the total number of athletes who tested positive for prohibited substances to 98.

Of the 45 failed tests announced by the International Olympic Committee yesterday, 30 were from Beijing, including 23 medallists, and 15 were from London. The IOC did not say whether any of the London athletes had won medals.

“The new reanalysis once again shows the commitment of the IOC in the fight against doping,” said IOC president, Thomas Bach.

The IOC stores samples for a decade in order to re-test using newer methods or to look for new drugs.

The results were part of the IOC’s re-testing of samples from past Games to keep cheats from competing at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month.

The athletes who failed the tests are being informed, after which proceedings against them can begin. All athletes found to have infringed anti-doping rules will be banned from competing in Rio.

The failed tests will raise further speculation about the extent of doping at the Games, just weeks before they start.

Doping scandals have plagued the build-up to the world’s biggest multisports event, with Russia facing a complete Games ban after the publication of the McLaren report on Monday.

The report revealed evidence of systematic and widespread state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

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The second wave of retests included 386 samples from Beijing, involving four sports and eight countries. There were 138 samples retested from London 2012, involving athletes from two sports and nine countries.

The third and fourth waves of tests are expected to continue throughout and after the Rio Games.

Meanwhile, the decision to ban Russia’s track and field athletes from next month’s Rio Games has saved the Olympics, former champion Darren Campbell has said.

The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Thursday rejected Russia’s appeal against a ban for its entire athletics team from next month’s Games.

The ban on Russia’s trackand-field team going to Rio was imposed last November by the International Association of Athletics Federations after an independent report uncovered rampant doping in Russian athletics.

“It’s a landmark statement that allows us to move forward and be inspired by pictures we’ll see at the Games,” said Campbell, who was part of Britain’s gold medal-winning 4x100m relay team at the Athens Games. “Any other decision would have been the death of athletics and the Olympics.”

The decision by the CAS, sport’s highest tribunal, increases the possibility of the IOC excluding Russia from all sports, not just track and field, in Rio.

The Russian Olympic Committee said on Thursday that it would fight until the end for the rights of all “clean” Russian sports people.

The committee also said it was “deeply disappointed” by the CAS ruling that upheld the ban for Russia’s athletics team.

China has reportedly asked Olympic athletes and coaches to sign a pledge not to use drugs and to pass a written test, as it seeks to enforce its zero-tolerance doping stance.

The Xinhua news agency reported yesterday that Gao Zhidan, vice-director of China’s General Administration of Sport who will lead China’s 711-member delegation, had said that rule violators would be punished severely, and those who failed the written test – which requires 80 out of 100 points to pass – would be barred from travelling to Rio. – Reuters