LONDON 2012’s legacy has been tainted further with an astonishing 76 stars now having tested positive.
Another wave of doping re-tests has caught out 15 more athletes from two sports and nine different nations.
It means the home Olympics from four years ago are fast becoming the dirtiest known Games in history.
Yesterday’s results are in addition to the 61 cheats already nabbed over the past four years with just three caught during the competition itself.
In the first wave of 2012 re-tests in May, 23 athletes were found to have been doping.
Another 30 from Beijing 2008 have been caught including 23 MEDALLISTS to take that Games’ tally to 60.
The latest are from four Olympic sports and across eight countries.
It means Brits Goldie Sayers plus Martyn Rooney, Andrew Steele, Robert Tobin and Michael Bingham, are set to be upgraded to Olympic bronze medals after finishing fourth in the javelin and the 4x400m in 2008 respectively behind Russian dopers.
Russian officials have confirmed 14 of the 30 involved were their athletes, including Anna Chicherova who won bronze in the high jump in Beijing and went on to take gold in London.
The International Olympic Committee are targeting athletes still competing and aiming to be at the Rio Games which start on August 5.
Anti-doping experts are allowed to store and re-test samples for up to ten years, tracking any changes under a new system.
Related stories
In total, 1,243 doping samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 were selected to be re-analysed in wave one and wave two with a total of 98 positives found so far — almost a staggering EIGHT PER CENT.
None of the new wave of athletes have been named so far but they will be banned from competing in Rio.
Olympic chiefs have also warned there could be more to come in the coming weeks.
Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, said: “The new re-analysis once again shows our commitment in the fight against doping.”
Advances in drug testing mean cheats are now being caught through the Athlete’s Biological Passport system.
The list includes Turkish women’s 1,500m gold medallist Asli Cakir Alptekin who has been stripped of her Olympic crown from London.
Russian president Vladimir Putin wants to create a new anti-doping commission in the wake of his country’s doping scandal and subsequent ban from next month’s Rio Olympics.
He recently told his cabinet that the commission will provide “rapid development and tough control for the effective realisation of a national plan on the fight against doping”.
Putin had proposed 81-year-old Vitaly Smirnov, an honorary IOC member, to lead the commission.
He added that Smirnov has an “absolutely unimpeachable reputation” and “the trust and respect of the Olympic family”.
It comes in the light of the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejecting the appeals of 68 Russian athletes following an IAAF ban from the Olympic Games.
Leave a comment