IOC confirms doping offense

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-08-23 10:29

Ukraine's heptathlon silver medalist Lyudmila Blonska is facing a life ban after the International Olympic Committee confirmed yesterday she had committed a doping offence.

Traces of an anabolic steroid showed up in her B-sample. The 30-year-old already served a two-year ban after testing positive in 2003. The 2007 world heptathlon silver medallist and 2008 world indoor pentathlon champion, who underwent the test on Aug16, has been stripped of her medal and expelled from the Games. Her medal will now go to American Hyleas Fountain.

Blonska's was the fifth drugs case. Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno tested positive for EPO, Democratic People's Republic of Korea's shooter Kim Jong-Su for betablockers, Vietnamese gymnast Do Thi Ngan Thuong for a diuretic, and Greece's 400m hurdles champion Fani Halkia for steroids.

AFP

(China Daily 08/23/2008 page2)