DRUGS IN SPORT MORE OLYMPIC TESTS:THE INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee (IOC) have said they will retest frozen blood samples taken from athletes during the Beijing Games in August for traces of a new generation of drug.
The decision comes days after a string of positive cases involving the frozen samples of cyclists from the Tour de France in July.
The IOC will especially be looking for EPO Cera, a new, performance-enhancing drug that the cyclists tested positive for, they said.
"The IOC intends to retest the samples collected this summer during the Olympic Games in Beijing," IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said.
"Substances that will be tested for across all sports include EPO Cera."
Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator (Cera) is a form of EPO that has a longer lasting effect in improving the blood's oxygen delivery system.
"All samples are currently being repatriated to the Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency)-accredited laboratory in Lausanne, where Olympic samples are usually stored after the Games," Moreau said. "The details of the retesting procedure are currently being discussed with Wada."
Moreau said the new test developed to trace EPO Cera was a blood test, so initially only blood samples from Beijing would be retested. "We will initially retest blood samples based on intelligence we have," she said.
The IOC collected about 1,000 blood samples and about 4,000 urine samples during the Games in Beijing. Once a urine test for the substance is available the urine samples will also be tested.
The IOC saw only a handful of positive drugs tests in Beijing after extensive efforts to crack down on doping and avoid having the Games marred by cheats.
They implemented the biggest Olympic anti-doping testing programme to date, with more than 5,000 tests during the Games and many more prior to the event, conducted on a national and international level.
Meanwhile, French drugs testers are continuing to screen samples from riders who competed in this year's Tour de France and expect to announce more positive results despite the race ending three months ago.
"The tests are still under way, they are not all done yet," French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) head Pierre Bordry said.
"I imagine there could be one or two more cases," race director Christian Prudhomme added, in a week when two Tour riders were exposed as drugs cheats.
On Monday, Italy's Leonardo Piepoli and Germany's Stefan Schumacher were revealed to have tested positive for the new blood-booster Cera.
The positive tests are the result of the AFLD retroactively testing blood samples for the new type of erythropoietin (EPO).
The Chatenay-Malabry laboratory has developed a more effective blood test to find Cera, which had been proving difficult to detect through urine samples.
The Lausanne lab, which is also approved by Wada, has implemented another test for Cera, and Bordry said it was also used to analyse blood samples from the Tour.
"We are testing samples from July 3rd, 4th and 15th," he said, adding there was no room for error.
"They are all tested by the Chatenay-Malabry lab, which is the official AFLD lab, but also in Lausanne, as a guarantee."
Bordry added that Schumacher, Piepoli and his compatriot Riccardo Ricco, who failed a urine test during the Tour, had two samples re-tested.
"For all of them, both samples were positive for Cera," he said.
During the Tour, Ricco, Spaniards Moises Duenas Nevado, Manuel Beltran, Kazakh Dmitri Fofonov and France's Jimmy Casper failed tests, although the latter was cleared by the French federation last month.
"Police seem to be ahead of thieves, which is something we could not have imagined a few years back," Prudhomme said.
"Those who have cheated must tell themselves that they will get caught."
