by John Crean
ATHENS, Aug 19 (AFP) - Five weightlifters face being thrown out of the Olympics after failing drugs tests, the International Olympic Committee and weightlifting officials said Thursday.
IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said five weightlifters had tested positive for banned substancess since teams of drug-busters started work on July 30 in the latest scandal to rock the tarnished sport.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) named the five as male lifters Viktor Chislean of Moldova, Zoltan Kecskes of Hungary and women Sule Sahbaz of Turkey, Pratima Kumari Na of India and Morocco's Wafa Ammouri.
The five have been suspended from the Olympics pending a full inquiry, an IWF spokesman added. The sport's governing body is to hold a press conference at 6.30pm (1530 GMT). No further details were immediately available.
A sixth lifter, Myanmar's Nan Aye Khine, had already been expelled from the games after testing positive for an anabolic steroid.
A long-standing IWF member, who asked not to be named, described news of the tests as another bodyblow to weightlifting, which has been tainted by repeated drug scandals in recent years.
"It is terrible (for the sport)," he said late Wednesday.
The IWF came down hard on drug cheats after the sport's future in the Olympics was threatened following a number of high-profile cases.
But they admit that the rewards for success are so great that athletes continue to pump up their already muscle-bound bodies to lift even heavier weights.
Weightlifting's first Olympic drug cheats were unmasked at the 1976 Montreal Games, with two medallists being kicked out, and despite a strict anti-drug regime three Bulgarian medal winners tested positive at the Sydney Games.
Two of those lifters, gold medallist Izabela Dragneva and Sevdalin Angelov, competed in Athens after resurrecting their careers following a drug ban. Neither finished in the medals.
The Sydney scandal overshadowed the sport and left the IWF determined to crack down on the cheats. Anxious to avoid a repeat in Sydney, the IWF banned three top Bulgarian lifters well before the games began.
Olympic champion Galabin Boevski was banned for eight years while Bulgarian
teammates Zlatan Vanev and Georgi Markov were hit with 18-month suspensions that prevented them from competing in Athens.
The IWF said the three had tampered with their drug tests nine months ago at the 2003 world championships in Vancouver by submitting urine samples that came from the same person.
While the IOC has in the past warned the IWF that the sport must put its house in order if it wished to remain in the Olympics, games officials insisted Thursday drugs were no bigger a problem in weightlifting than other sports.
"We welcome and praise the federation (IWF) for their systematic testing program," Davies told a press conference. "This is proof that the system is working," she added, denying that weightlifting was a problem sport.
"The percentages for the number of tests carried out against the number of positives are just the same as other sports. It's not correct to say that weightlifting is worse than other sports," she said.
All 260 competitors qualified for the games had been subjected to dope tests, IWF officials said.