Nick Willis could get Olympic silver medal

An upgrade of Nick Willis' Olympic 1500m medal from bronze to silver should be a formality, NZ Olympic Committee secretary general Barry Maister says.

The Hutt Valley-raised middle distance runner is in the hunt for an upgrade after gold medallist, Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain, tested positive for drugs.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) identified him as one of seven more positive drugs results from re-testing of samples taken from six athletes at Beijing

Following his "A" positive test result he has a test for a B sample in France on June 8 and will face an IOC hearing the same day.

Maister said today if athletes tested positive to the A sample it was almost a foregone conclusion they would do the same with the B sample.

"I would expect that within a week we will be notified by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) that Nick is eligible for the silver," he told Radio New Zealand despite the B sample will not be tested until June 8.

Maister said he felt sorry for Willis if it transpired that he had been cheated out of a silver medal, which would mean he missed being able to step up the celebrations immediately after his run.

"When I think of these athletes who win by cheating, they get a lot of kudos and probably a lot of sponsorship and accolade that comes with it, and you can't ever take that back.

"So the cheats do momentarily prosper in this system, all we can say is that we believe Nick is a genuine champion and we are mighty proud of his bronze – and now his silver.

"He will never stand on the victory dais in that second spot, but for us he is a champion."

If Ramzi is stripped of the Beijing victory, Asbel Kipruto Kiprop of Kenya stands to be upgraded from silver to gold.

Fourth-place finisher Mehdi Baala of France could move up to the bronze medal.

The six new cases bring to 15 the total number of athletes caught doping in Beijing last August.

The IOC re-analysed a total of 948 samples from Beijing after new lab tests for CERA and insulin later became available.

The testing began in January and focused mainly on endurance events in cycling, rowing, swimming and track and field.

Ramzi is the first Beijing gold medalist caught positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

The Moroccan-born runner, who won the 800-1500 double at the 2005 world championships, gave Bahrain its first ever Olympic track and field gold medal with victory in Beijing in three minutes, 32.94 seconds.

No New Zealand athletes at last year's Olympics have been netted in the re-testing of samples, the New Zealand Olympic Committee said yesterday.

Ramzi became a citizen of Bahrain after moving to the Gulf nation to take up a job in that country's armed forces in 2002, but retains a Moroccan passport and trains with old coach Khalid Boulami.

Ramzi and two cyclists are among six athletes to test positive for drugs at the Beijing Olympics.

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 (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator), in re-tests of samples taken in Beijing last year.

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.

Ramzi's "B" sample will be tested in France on June 8 and he will face an IOC hearing the same day, the Bahrain Olympic Committee said.

CERA is the new generation of the banned blood-booster erythropoietin (EPO), for which a test was developed only recently.

A person with knowledge of the results told The Associated Press that Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka and Croatian 800-metre runner Vanja Perisic were the other track athletes who tested positive.

The Dominican Olympic Committee identified women's weightlifter Yudelquis Contreras as the sixth athlete. She competed in the 53-kilogram category as Yudelquis Maridalin and finished fifth.

If their backup "B" samples also come back positive, all six could be banned from the 2012 London Olympics if their international federations, responsible for any sanctions, ban them for any period longer than six months.

The new rule was introduced by the IOC prior to the Beijing Olympics as yet another deterrent to drugs cheats, as was the storing of samples for eight years to allow re-testing once new methods of detecting banned substances are developed.

The six new cases bring to 15 the total number of athletes caught doping in Beijing, and underscore the IOC's aggressive policy in catching drug cheats even outside the period of the Olympics.

The IOC re-analyzed 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.

Tsoumeleka finished ninth in the 20-kilometer walk, and Perisic was eliminated in the first-round heats of the 800.

Tsoumeleka announced in January that she had tested positive in Beijing rechecks.

She was charged by a Greek prosecutor earlier this month with using banned drugs.

In Rome, the Italian Olympic Committee suspended Rebellin and anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri called him to a hearing on Monday.

The 37-year-old Rebellin finished second behind Spain's Samuel Sanchez in the Olympic road race. If he loses his medal, Switzerland's Fabian Cancellera could move to silver and Russia's Alexander Kolobnev to bronze.

Rebellin's pro cycling team, Diquigiovanni-Androni, temporarily suspended the rider, pending analysis of the "B" sample.

The German cycling federation announced that Schumacher, who finished 13th in the Beijing time trial and dropped out before the finish of the road race, was among the positive cases.

The 27-year-old Schumacher already has been banned for two years by the International Cycling Union after being caught by French authorities in retesting of Tour de France samples for CERA.

Schumacher won two individual time trial stages at the Tour de France last July and wore the yellow jersey for two days as race leader.

The IOC previously disqualified nine athletes for doping at the Aug. 8-24 Olympics. In addition, there were six doping cases involving horses in the equestrian competition.

The IOC has already stripped four athletes of Beijing medals – Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska (silver), Belarusian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy (silver) and Ivan Tsikhan (bronze) and North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su (silver and bronze).

-NZPA