20 weightlifters positive or presumed in doping retests: IWF

A retest of samples has found 10 suspected doping cases involving weightlifters from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and another 10 cases from the 2012 London Games, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has announced.

The IWF said on its website on Monday that it had been notified by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that B samples of the Beijing tests had been under further analyses for confirmation as Beijing tests were "presumed" positives, while 10 from London were described as confirmed positives, reports Xinhua.

No names or nationalities have been released, but the tests involved medal winners.

The IWF said it will "proceed to the provisional suspension of the athletes as soon as the IOC procedures concluded."

The current retesting programme is part of the efforts to protect the clean athletes. Last month an IOC official said the new testing campaign had caught athletes who participated in Beijing and in London Games and may have qualified for Rio.

The IOC stores Olympic doping samples for 10 years so they can be reanalyzed when new testing methods become available.

--IANS

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