As the eight-year statute of limitations on changing Olympic results draws near, the IOC will start retesting doping samples from the Torino Games. The IOC medical commission says it will use updated techniques as a last ditch effort to discover who might have been cheating in 2006.
“Science evolves continuously,” IOC medical commission chair Arne Ljungqvist told the Associated Press. “The longer we wait, the better position we will be in to apply modern technology.”
Ljungqvist added that “no samples are immune,” and that the IOC with work hand-in-hand with the World Anti-doping Agency to determine which events they plan to target with their testing of blood and urine samples.
Endurance events like cross-country skiing and the biathlon, the latter or which produced the only positive test in Torino, are the most likely to be examined before the statute runs out next February.
“We are discussing with WADA what to do and how much we do, just like we did with Athens,” Ljungqvist said. “It will be a heavy work load with the all the logistics and practical issues.”
That said, the IOC stepped outside it’s eight-year limit earlier this year when they revoked Lance Armstrong’s Sydney time trial bronze after he admitted to doping, so anything is possible.
