The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

EVERY time the Olympic Games and the IAAF World Championships come around, there is one word that permeates the atmosphere - drugs.

Going into the Olympic Games in August in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the word has surfaced but to a more prevalent form with about two dozen athletes testing positive in a reanalysis of their doping samples from the 2012 London Olympics, adding to the more than 30 already caught in retesting from the 2008 Beijing Games.

The International Olympic Committee announced on Friday that 23 athletes from five sports and six countries had positive findings in retests with improved techniques on 265 samples from the London Games.

The IOC did not identify the athletes, their sports or their nationalities.

“The reanalysis programme is ongoing, with the possibility of more results in the coming weeks,” the IOC said.

There is always a cause for alarm when you hear or read statements such as the above because there is no indication of exactly who the culprits are.

So far, the Bahamas has not been mentioned but it was reported that the 23 London athletes are in addition to the 31 who tested positive in retesting from the Beijing Olympics.

The IOC said Friday that another sample from Beijing has since shown “abnormal parameters,” and the case was being followed up.

In a span covering the last two Olympics in London in 2012 and Beijing, China in 2008, at least 55 athletes could be retroactively disqualified and have their results, and any medals, stripped.

Based on the report, the IOC stores Olympic doping samples for 10 years so they can be reanalysed when new testing methods become available.

The report further states that the current retesting programme targeted athletes who could be eligible to compete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August, so we’re not completely out of the woods yet.

“These reanalyses show, once again, our determination in the fight against doping,” IOC President Thomas Bach said. “We want to keep the dopers away from the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. This is why we are acting swiftly now.”

Bach said he has appointed a disciplinary commission which “has the full power” to sanction athletes.

The IOC still has to retest the athletes’ “B” samples. Formal positive cases are not declared until the “B” samples confirm the original findings.

The IOC said the athletes, their national Olympic committees and their international sports federations were being informed ahead of formal disciplinary proceedings.

“All athletes found to have infringed the anti-doping rules will be banned from competing at the Olympic Games” in Rio, it said.

The IOC said the retests were carried out using “the very latest scientific analysis methods.”

World Anti-Doping Agency president Craig Reedie said the results showed the system of saving drug samples for later retesting works.

“The discovery of 23 positives shows the effectiveness of new methods and modern science,” Reedie told The Associated Press. “So athletes be warned. If you were cheating and thought you got away with it, you will be caught.”

In recent times, the Bahamas has not had a positive drug testing case in which any of our athletes were banned from competing or stripped of their medals at the Olympics.

However, there are one of two cases where the Bahamas benefitted from such actions by athletes from other countries.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that our athletes will remain drug free in the sport.

There’s really no need to cheat to advance in the sport.

• The Tribune is following Team Bahamas in the build up to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and will be reporting from Brazil this summer. The ‘242 on the Road to Rio series’ will appear every Monday and Thursday. Comments and responses to bstubbs@tribunemedia.net