Eleven Olympic weightlifting medalists will be stripped of their medals after failing retests of their doping samples from the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said the 11 athletes tested positive for a range of banned substances. They have all been provisionally suspended until the doping cases are decided.
The IWF said in a statement on August 24 that Chinese gold medalists Cao Lei, Liu Chunhong, and Chen Xiexia all tested positive for GHRP-2, which stimulates growth hormone production.
The IWF said the other eight medalists, including current world-record holder Andrei Rybakou of Belarus who won silver in 2008, all tested positive for various anabolic steroids.
The other medalists are Belarus’s Anastasia Novikova, Kazakhstan's Maria Grabovetskaya and Irina Nekrasova, Russia's Khadzhimurat Akkaev and Dmitry Lapikov, and Ukraine's Natalya Davydova and Olha Korobka.
