LAUSANNE // The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will retest all doping samples from the Beijing Games to check for traces of a new blood-boosting drug.
The unprecedented move, announced today, is designed to search for a banned substance that was only recently detected during retesting of samples from the Tour de France.
The Beijing samples - across all sports - are being sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) accredited laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, the IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said.
The IOC conducted more than 5,000 drug tests during the Beijing Games. 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, Miss Moreau said. The decision comes after a new laboratory test used by the French Anti-Doping Agency detected Cera during retesting of samples from Tour de France cyclists.
The original urine tests had raised suspicions but proved inconclusive. "It's very good. It allows us to confound the cheaters," the Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme said yesterday. "What's being done at the Tour de France has never existed in the world of sport."
Officials confirmed yesterday that the German rider Stefan Schumacher, and the Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli had tested positive for Cera during this year's Tour. The three riders combined to win five of the Tour's 21 stages.
The IOC vice president Thomas Bach said yesterday 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 does not pull together to improve the situation "then you have to consider giving men's road cycling a pause" from Olympic participation, Mr Bach told The Associated Press.
In a statement issued today, Mr 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 Beijing Games - the Ukraine heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska, the Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov, hurdler Fani Halkia of Greece, the North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, the Spanish cyclist Isabel Moreno and the Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do. Three other cases are still pending. The IOC have given the 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 the Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski, who tested positive for clenbuterol.
*AP
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Business Insights
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Iran's dirty tricks to dodge sanctions
There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
A first vessel will take its clandestine cargo away from the country in question before transferring it to a waiting ship, all of this happening out of sight. The vessels will then sail in different directions. For about a third of Iranian exports, more than one tanker typically handles a load before it’s delivered to its final destination, analysts say.
3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
Four-day collections of TOH
Day Indian Rs (Dh)
Thursday 500.75 million (25.23m)
Friday 280.25m (14.12m)
Saturday 220.75m (11.21m)
Sunday 170.25m (8.58m)
Total 1.19bn (59.15m)
(Figures in millions, approximate)
FIXTURES (all times UAE)
Sunday
Brescia v Lazio (3.30pm)
SPAL v Verona (6pm)
Genoa v Sassuolo (9pm)
AS Roma v Torino (11.45pm)
Monday
Bologna v Fiorentina (3.30pm)
AC Milan v Sampdoria (6pm)
Juventus v Cagliari (6pm)
Atalanta v Parma (6pm)
Lecce v Udinese (9pm)
Napoli v Inter Milan (11.45pm)
Schedule:
Friday, January 12: Six fourball matches
Saturday, January 13: Six foursome (alternate shot) matches
Sunday, January 14: 12 singles
Winners
Best Men's Player of the Year: Kylian Mbappe (PSG)
Maradona Award for Best Goal Scorer of the Year: Robert Lewandowski (Bayern Munich)
TikTok Fans’ Player of the Year: Robert Lewandowski
Top Goal Scorer of All Time: Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United)
Best Women's Player of the Year: Alexia Putellas (Barcelona)
Best Men's Club of the Year: Chelsea
Best Women's Club of the Year: Barcelona
Best Defender of the Year: Leonardo Bonucci (Juventus/Italy)
Best Goalkeeper of the Year: Gianluigi Donnarumma (PSG/Italy)
Best Coach of the Year: Roberto Mancini (Italy)
Best National Team of the Year: Italy
Best Agent of the Year: Federico Pastorello
Best Sporting Director of the Year: Txiki Begiristain (Manchester City)
Player Career Award: Ronaldinho
