IOC retesting 2006 Winter Olympic doping samples
Thu, May 20, 2010 - By Stephen Wilson
LONDON — Olympic officials, acting on a tip-off from the World Anti-Doping Agency, are retesting some doping samples from the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin to check for use of the blood-boosting drug CERA.
Four years after the games, WADA said Monday it received "new information" about possible misuse of CERA in Turin before the endurance-enhancing substance was put on the market.
WADA said it relayed the information to the International Olympic Committee, which decided to "conduct further analysis of a number of samples" collected in Turin.
"This analysis is ongoing," WADA president John Fahey said following the agency's executive committee and foundation board meetings in Montreal.
The IOC stores Olympic doping samples for eight years so they can be analyzed retroactively once new testing methods become available. Any drug cheats caught in the retests can be disqualified and stripped of their medals and results.
"An athlete who thinks he or she has got through a major event with some success through doping should continue to look over their shoulder because over the next years there is this capacity to reanalyze samples that have been stored," Fahey said in a conference call. "We're now seeing reanalysis of samples by the IOC from an event over four years ago."
The IOC had no immediate comment.