Bahrain's Olympic 1,500 meters gold medallist Rashid Ramzi and two cyclists are among six athletes who tested positive for drugs at the Beijing Olympics, officials said on Wednesday. Italy's road race silver medallist Davide Rebellin and German Stefan Schumacher, who is already banned for doping, were confirmed to have tested positive for CERA along with Ramzi in re-tests of samples taken in Beijing last year. The International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday it had discovered seven more positive drugs results from re-testing samples taken from Beijing involving six athletes. The Italian and Bahrain Olympic Committees confirmed the Rebellin and Ramzi positives while the German cycling federation said Schumacher had tested positive. The Bahrain Olympic Committee said it would meet Ramzi, the country's first Olympic champion, to inform him of the findings and hear his explanation. “While the Bahrain Olympic Committee expresses its regret at receiving this news from the International Olympic Committee it confirms that Rashid Ramzi had been subject to many tests before and during the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and all the results were negative,” it said in a statement. All the athletes tested positive for CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator), the new generation of the banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO), for which a test was developed only recently. International cycling president Pat McQuaid said the naming of the Italian athlete by the Italian Olympic Committee was wrong. Dominican women's weightlifter Yudelquis Contreras, Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka and Croatian 800-meter runner Vanja Perisic are the other three. The six new cases bring to 15 the total number of athletes caught doping in Beijing, and underscore both the persistence of cheating across sports and nations and the IOC's aggressive policy in catching drug users even outside the period of the Olympics. The IOC reanalyzed a total of 948 samples from Beijing after new lab tests for CERA and insulin became available following the Olympics. The testing began in January and focused mainly on endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and track and field. “Of 948 samples that were analyzed, seven resulted in an adverse analytical finding (AAF) concerning six athletes,” the IOC said in a statement on Tuesday. Nine athletes tested positive during the Beijing Olympics.
