IOC To Re-Test All Doping Samples From Beijing After New Cheating Technology Revealed

The International Olympic Committee will retest doping samples from the Beijing Games to check for traces of a new blood-boosting drug.

The unprecedented move, announced Wednesday, is designed to search for a banned substance that was only recently detected during retesting of samples from the Tour de France.

IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau says the Beijing samples — across all sports — are being sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory in Lausanne.

The IOC conducted more than 5,000 drug tests during the Beijing Games. It wasn’t immediately clear how many of the samples will be retested.

The samples will be reopened and tested for CERA, a new generation of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO.

The substance boosts an athlete’s performance by increasing the number of oxygen-rich blood cells.

Details of the testing procedure are under discussion with WADA, Moreau said.

“This clearly demonstrates the determination that there is zero tolerance (on doping), and that we will use all the means available to catch the cheaters,” IOC vice president Thomas Bach of Germany told The Associated Press.

The IOC stores samples from the Olympics for eight years, leaving open the possibility to retest them when new detection methods are devised.

Bach suggested the new tests should target endurance sports in which CERA would be most beneficial to athletes.

The decision comes after a new lab test used by the French Anti-Doping Agency detected CERA during retesting of samples from Tour de France riders. The original urine tests had raised suspicions but proved inconclusive.

“It’s very good. It allows us to confound the cheaters,” Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme said Tuesday. “What’s being done at the Tour de France has never existed in the world of sport.”

Officials confirmed Tuesday that German rider Stefan Schumacher, and Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli had tested positive for CERA at the Tour. The three riders combined to win five of the Tour’s 21 stages.

Bach said Tuesday that the future of men’s road cycling in the Olympics could be threatened unless the sport cleans up its act under the aegis of the international cycling union, or UCI.

If the entire sport doesn’t pull together to improve the situation, “then you have to consider giving men’s road cycling a pause” from Olympic participation, Bach told the AP in a telephone interview.

In a statement Wednesday, Moreau said, `The IOC will continue to support the UCI — and any other international federation — as long as it is deploying meaningful and credible means and efforts to fight against doping.”

The IOC disqualified six athletes for doping during the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Games — Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov, Greek hurdler Fani Halkia, North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, Spanish cyclist Isabel Moreno and Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do.

Three other cases are still pending. The IOC has given Belarusian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan until Oct. 17 to provide more information explaining why they tested positive for testosterone. A decision is due shortly in the case of Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski, who tested positive for clenbuterol.

In addition, dozens of athletes around the world were caught for doping before the Olympics in pre-games tests.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge gestures during a press conference on June 23, 2008 at the IOC Headquarters in Lausanne. Photo credit should read Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images.