Olympic athletes at the 2008 Beijing Games who cheated but didn’t get caught are now facing penalties eight years later.
The Associated Press reports the International Olympic Committee started disciplinary proceedings against 31 undefined athletes whose samples were retested for doping and tested positive. The IOC retested more than 454 samples, and the athletes who tested positive are set to compete at the Rio De Janeiro Games in August.
BREAKING: IOC says 31 athletes test positive for doping in retesting of 2008 Beijing Olympic samples.
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 17, 2016
The IOC isn’t stopping with Beijing as they intend to retest other samples from both the 2012 London Games and the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. The IOC has been retesting doping samples with new scientific methods, which has allowed them to determine if a test was positive, that they wouldn’t have been able to identify before.
Those who test positive will be banned from competing at future Olympic Games.
“This is a powerful strike against the cheats,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “They show once again that dopers have no place to hide.”
“All those athletes infringing anti-doping rules will be banned from competing at the Olympic Games” in Rio, the IOC said after a teleconference meeting of its policy-making executive board.
It’s going to be fascinating to see which athletes have tested positive once the names are announced publicly. It’s a distinct possibility that medals will be revoked and history will be rewritten. Athletes who built a name for themselves at Beijing and have seen their careers skyrocket since might be knocked down if they’re found to be doping.
The IOC is absolutely doing the right thing by retesting the samples, doing necessary work almost a decade later to show that cheating should never go rewarded.
[ESPN]
