IOC to decide drug trio’s fate

Endurance athletes from the sports of cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics will be the prime targets for the International Olympic Committee when it resumes testing of around 500 samples in January 2009.

The announcement was made Tuesday, a day before the IOC meets in Lausanne to decide the fate of three of the nine athletes who tested positive at this summer’s Beijing Games.

Although hailed as one of the cleanest Games ever, it is possible that further positive drugs tests will be announced at the end of March 2009, the date the IOC said it will release the results from analysis of “approximately 500 samples”.

In an official statement the IOC said the testing programme would primarily target endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics.

It added: “... the samples collected this summer during the Olympic Games in Beijing will be further analysed as of January next year.

“All the samples have now been repatriated to the WADA-accredited laboratory in Lausanne, where the majority of the tests will be conducted.”

The IOC’s anti-doping commission will be testing around 400 samples from the Games for CERA, the latest generation of the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin).

That decision was made after four of the seven cyclists from this year’s Tour de France - German Stefan Schumacher, Austrian Bernhard Kohl and Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli - tested positive for CERA.

Until recently CERA was believed to be undetectable. All four cyclists were snared by a urine test for the drug pioneered during the summer, but since then a more reliable blood test exists.

The IOC added that around 100 samples would be tested for the banned hormone insulin, which can “enhance performance by influencing the glycogen metabolism”.

LAUSANNE, AFP