Eleven Greek weightlifters have been suspended for two years after testing positive for a banned steroid.
The International Weightlifting Federation said on Tuesday that Greece will still be able to send a team of four weightlifters – three men and a woman – to the Beijing Olympics.
The IWF said the decision was made by its executive board last Friday.
Eleven of the Greek team’s 14 weightlifters tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone during a March out-of-competition test in Athens, and the results were announced in April. The athletes have not been named.
The IWF said the Greek weightlifting federation was also sanctioned, but gave no details.
A Greek federation official said the IWF fined the federation 250,000 euros (US$387,000). He was speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to comment on the affair.
The official said the four Greek athletes for Beijing would be selected “in the next few days.”
He said the weightlifters would “definitely” include Nikos Kourtidis, 22, one of the three members of the national team who did not test positive in March.
Last month, a Greek prosecutor filed misdemeanor charges against the 11 athletes, Olympic weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou and 13 other people.
Iakovou, 60, was suspended after the doping scandal broke. He has denied knowingly giving the team banned substances, and blamed a faulty batch of Chinese diet supplements.
Ten of the athletes accused of doping have backed Iakovou, but one female weightlifter has threatened to take legal action against anyone found responsible for giving her steroids, allegedly without her knowledge.
(Source: Shanghai Daily/Agencies)