The IOC will announce in one week how many new doping failures from the 2012 London Olympics have been found in retesting of samples, officials said Wednesday.
The International Olympic Committee has already announced 31 new suspect cases from the 2008 Beijing Games out of 454 new tests.
IOC president Thomas Bach told reporters that the new testing campaign had caught athletes “who participated in Beijing and in London and may have qualified for Rio”.
Bach has warned that “dozens” of competitors caught out by a new wave of testing from past Olympics risk being banned from the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August.
The international body has said the provisional results from tests on 250 London samples will be known in about one week.
IOC medical and scientific director Richard Budgett said: “We won't be able to give any details but we will give numbers in approximately a week's time.”
After that athletes suspected of doping will be given 10 days to attend a second test of their sample. Budgett said that if athletes did not attend an “independent witness” would be present.
A final result will be known two or three days after the second test in early June.
The sporting authorities will then decide whether the athlete should be immediately suspended while disciplinary proceedings are held.
Bach said that no medals that are taken from winners from Beijing or London would be re-awarded until the samples from the athletes moving up have been tested.
“We will not award a medal to another athlete whose sample has not been retested,” said Bach who added that it was unlikely that medals would be reallocated before the Rio Olympics start on August 5. – AFP