IOC Steps Up Doping Fight in Run-up to Rio 2016

(ATR) The IOC is retesting hundreds of athletes’ samples taken at the London and Beijing Olympics under efforts to weed out the drug cheats before Rio 2016.

The reanalysis of selected samples is already under way. The IOC and WADA have agreed on the sports and countries being targeted, including particular athletes likely to compete at Rio 2016. Samples will be subject to new advances in methods of analysis since Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

"The aim of the program is to prevent athletes who cheated in London or Beijing, and got away with it because we didn’t have as advanced methods of analysis as we do now, from competing in Rio de Janeiro," IOC medical director Richard Budgett said.

"The results will come in a number of weeks or months," he told the WADA Symposium in Lausanne.

The retesting comes in the wake of the IAAF doping scandals involving Russia and Kenya. Currently suspended, Russia is battling to overhaul its anti-doping system to achieve IAAF and WADA compliance. Both countries’ athletics teams could be banned from competing at the Rio Games.

Last week, the IAAF said five countries were in "critical care" concerning their anti-doping programs – Ethiopia and Morocco needed to take swift action to address their particular problems, while Kenya, Ukraine and Belarus were warned they needed to become compliant by the end of the year or risk suspension.

Funded by the IOC, WADA has also set up a task force to gather information and intelligence, to identify any gaps in pre-Games testing and coordinate any extra testing needed through the international federations and national anti-doping organizations.

It will identify athletes or groups of athletes who should be included in registered testing pools, and those who the IOC should test during the four-week period of the Olympics.

"We are trying passionately to protect those clean athletes who are going to Rio 2016," Budgett said. "And the best way to do that is to catch the cheats and deter the cheats before we get to Rio de Janeiro. So that’s why we launched this initiative with the task force even before the Olympic Games open."

The measures are in line with Agenda 2020 reforms. Earlier this month, the IOC Executive Board agreed to delegate decisions on alleged anti-doping rule violations during the Rio Olympics to an independent body. A new anti-doping division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport will handle cases from the Olympics onwards.

Reported by Mark Bisson

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.