Apparently Everyone Was Doping At The 2008 Beijing Olympics

I know the 2008 Summer Olympics happened eight months ago, but you'll pleased to know that there are athletes - gold medal winners even - who are still failing drug tests from the Games.

Thanks to Steroid Nation, which should probably change its name to Steroid Universe, we've got news today that Rashid Ramzi - who won Bahrain's first gold medal ever in the men's 1500m - has tested positive for blood doping. 

Ah, but there's more! Italian Davide Rebellin - who won a silver medal in cycling - also tested positive too. And just to top it all off, so did German cyclist Stefan Schumaker. So why did it take so long to catch them? Retests to check for the newest form of blood doping of course:


Also, you may have noticed that last sentence about six suspects. That's because in addition to Ramzi, Rebellin and Schumaker, three other dopes were caught doping after the retest.

Just for a little more background, the athletes' samples were re-tested for CERA, a new version of a endurance-enhancing hormone that is cutting edge stuff. There was no test for this drug yet during the Olympic Games. 

Also, to give you some idea of how rife these games were with cheating, four athletes tested positive during the Beijing Games including several medal winners: Greece's Fani Halkia, Ukraine's heptathlon silver medallist Lyudmila Blonska, and Belarussians Vadim Devyatovsky and Ivan Tikhan, who had finished second and third in the men's hammer.

And I won't even bring up the Chinese women's gymnastics team, which was entirely underaged.

So what happens now? Well, in all likelihood, Ramzi and Rebellin will lose their medals, and blood dopers will find some new way to cheat that isn't testable yet. And we'll all continue to wonder if anyone is ever clean at any Olympics, ever. (Answer: No one is clean)

More on 2008 Beijing Olympics positive doping tests: Davide Rebellin, Rashid Ramzi & Stefan Schumaker [Steroid Nation]