The International Olympic Committee said in a statement that 500 doping samples from the Beijing Olympics will be retested  in January. According to the body, these  tests “will primarily target endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics.” It is noted that most of the athletes in the Beijing Olympics who were tested positive for steroids use came from endurance events. It is expected that the first result will be available at the end of March next year.

A total of 4,770 doping tests were conducted by the IOC during the Beijing Olympics and another 1,000 blood screenings. The samples are frozen and stored for eight years, making them available when new detection methods are devised. So if there are athletes caught by new tests, they can be sanctioned and stripped of their results and medals according to the body.

Yahoo Sports already mentioned that there were six athletes tested positive, while three additional cases became known after the games and are still pending. Rulings on the cases of Belarusian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan — who won the silver and bronze medals respectively — and Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski are expected at the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne. If the Belarusians are disqualified, the silver would go to Krisztian Pars of Hungary and the bronze to Koji Murofushi of Japan.

Retesting of the doping samples has prompted the IOC to do it next month because of the new blood test developed by the French Anti-Doping Agency. The test was able to detect steroids especially CERA from four riders of the Tour de France in retesting after the July race.

In a report from CNN.com, the new drug testing procedures will allow the IOC to test for two banned substances known to have been used in the past by athletes in endurance events like cycling, rowing, swimming and athletics, the IOC said.

The first substance is EPO CERA, a new version of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO which was discovered during this year’s Tour de France, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then developed a blood test to test for it, the IOC said. The second substance is insulin, a hormone that can enhance performance by influencing the glycogen metabolism. While the substance is not new, it wasn’t until recently that a WADA lab developed an effective urine test for it, IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau told CNN. “Labs were looking for an efficient test, but the fully validated test was not available until very recently,” she said.

Although there were no evidence yet to pinpoint who among the athletes in the Beijing Olympics used  these banned substances. The International Olympic Committee conducts these tests for substances when new procedures to look for them are developed. “When we have a test available which is fully validated, we use it and we don’t hesitate to test retroactively,” Moreau added.

Aside from the doping issues that will be discussed at Lousanne, IOC will also tackle at its annual year-end meeting the next 3 Olympics, the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia respectivley. Last Friday, the IOC already announced the possible host city for the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012. The possible locations are Innsbruck, Austria, and Kuopio, Finland while Singapore will host the first Summer Youth Olympic in 2010. The Youth Games are for athletes aged 14-18.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS