| Advertisement |
MOSCOW, May 24 (UPI) -- Fourteen Russian athletes in three sports at the 2008 Beijing Olympics tested positive for doping during re-tests of their samples, the Russian Olympic Committee confirmed Tuesday. The International Olympic Committee had selected 454 doping samples for re-testing with the latest scientific analysis. The IOC had said up to 31 athletes could be banned from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Advertisement
The Russian committee, which confirmed Tuesday it received documents from the IOC, won't name the athletes unless their B samples are positive in June testing in Australia.
Those who tested positive for banned substances in past Olympics cannot be members of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the All-Russia Athletics Federation said. It took "such a tough decision with one aim — to do everything so that clean athletes could take part in the 2016 Olympic Games."
Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko said his country was "very sorry" and "ashamed" of cheating athletes not caught by its anti-doping systems.
The decision on whether to admit Russian athletes to Rio is expected by June 17. The Summer Olympics start Aug. 5 and continue through Aug. 21.
A report by the World Anti-Doping Agency last fall concluded that several top Russian athletes used banned substances during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, sometimes at the encouragement of the government in Moscow. Russian authorities have denied the claims.
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking into the allegations.
