ATHENS, Aug 21 (AFP) - Superheavyweight Russian weightlifter Albina Khomich has been kicked out of the Olympics on Saturday for failing a drugs test, a senior International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) official confirmed to AFP.
Khomich, the 2001 world champion and runner-up last year, was among the favourites for the gold medal in the over 75kg category. According to media reports in Russia, she had taken a steroid.
"It is a statement of fact - it is true. Yes," said the IWF delegate, when asked if Khomich tested positive
She is the ninth weightlifter to fail a drugs test as the sport goes through one of the worst crises in its tainted history.
Earlier Saturday, the second sample of Greece's weightlifting bronze-medal winner Leonidas Sampanis had tested positive, said a Greek official close to the Olympic team.
"We've been told the second sample is also positive," the official told AFP. Sampanis now faces being stripped of his medal from the men's 62kg competition after test results showed illegal levels of testosterone.
Greece's Olympic campaign has already been rocked by a doping scandal surrounding sprint stars Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou who withdrew from the Olympics Wednesday.
Sampanis and his coach Christos Iacovou have denied the athlete has taken any banned substances and testified before a disciplinary panel of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Saturday.
Iacovou insisted that 33-year old Sampanis -- a two-time Olympic silver medallist -- was innocent of a doping offence, saying the lifter was not a drugs cheat.
"The presence of testosterone (a naturally occurring hormone) could have been caused by stress or a health problem," Iacovou said.
Weightlifting has waged a vigorous anti-doping campaign since a scandal at the 2000 Games which saw three Bulgarians expelled.
The IWF carried out tests of all 260 Olympic competitors prior to the Athens games in an attempt to ensure that only 'clean' athletes took part.