Another 45 athletes have tested positive for forbidden substances in a second round of retests of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday.
The IOC said that 30 retests from Beijing 2008 returned positive, with 23 of the athletes medallists, and the 30 athletes coming from four sports and eight countries.
While the Beijing results are provisional findings, pending the analysis of the b-sample, the 15 tests from London 2012 are positives and from two sports and nine countries.
In total, 98 athletes have tested positive in two rounds of retests from the two Games, and 1,243 samples retested – and that all athletes found guilty will be banned from competing at next month’s Rio de Janeiro Games.
“The new reanalysis once again shows the commitment of the IOC in the fight against doping,” IOC President Thomas Bach said.
In all, 60 adverse findings from 840 tested samples are from Beijing and 38 from 403 tests from London.
The IOC said in a statement it will conduct two further waves of retests from these Games, with the analysis continuing until after Rio.
Using the latest scientific analysis methods, the IOC said its second wave of retests of the Beijing samples focussed mainly on medallists and that the 2008 and 2012 retests “followed an intelligence-gathering process that started in August 2015 and included the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and International Federations (IFs)”.
The IOC did not identify the athletes and countries for confidentiality reasons but said all parties have been informed, with just two weeks left until the August 5 opening ceremony of the Rio Games.
The news came as the IOC must decide whether or not to ban all Russian athletes from competing in Brazil, after allegations of state-organised doping in Russia in various sports, made in a report by a WADA commission.
Russia’s athletics team is already banned, the measure from the ruling athletics body IAAF confirmed Thursday by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The IOC said it will make a decision by Tuesday at the latest, with an executive board meeting set for Sunday.
Of the 53 athletes caught in the first wave of IOC retests from 2008 and 2012, 22 athletes were from Russia, according to the nation’s Olympic Committee.
Waves of Olympic Games retesting from 2008 and 2012:
First Wave:
Beijing 2008:
* 454 selected samples, 30 positive tests, 12 countries, 6 sports
London 2012:
* 265 selected samples, 23 positive tests, 6 countries, 5 sports
Second Wave:
Beijing 2008:
* 386 selected samples, 30 provisional positive tests, 8 countries, 4 sports
London 2008:
* 138 selected samples, 15 positive tests, 9 countries, 2 sports
Two further rounds of retests are planned.
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