The country’s Olympic Committee said in a statement that it had been informed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that re-tests of those samples had yielded 14 positive results from Russian athletes.
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Coach Yevgeny Zagorulko tells Russian state news agency Tass that Chicherova is one of 31 athletes notified that their samples came back positive in retests.
A view through a fence, decorated with the Olympic rings, shows a building of the federal state budgetary institution “Federal scientific centre of physical culture and sports”, which houses a laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), in Moscow, Russia on November 11, 2015.
Russia’s athletes are now banned from global competition and are looking to still compete in Rio.
Any potential participant in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro who proved to use doping in the past can not be a member of the Russian athletics team at the Games, the All-Russia Athletics Federation said on its official website, reports Tass.
“It is in the interest of the IAAF and the Russian athletics federation that the strongest athletes compete at Olympic Games”, Nagornykh was quoted by Russian media as saying.
Fourteen of the 31 were Russian and most of those were track and field athletes, Tass reported. Russian state TV said 10 of the athletes were medalists, including 2012 high jump champion Anna Chicherova.
Chicherova won bronze at the Beijing Olympics eight years ago and then took gold 2012 in London.
Former javelin world champion Christina Obergfoell of Germany meanwhile called for tough action against Russian Federation in light of the latest accusations. It said the athletes came from six sports and 12 countries, but declined to give names, citing legal reasons.
Warming to his topic, Mutko also listed the achievements he has made since the sports ministry was set up in 2008 – in particular Russia’s regular hosting of major sports events – and defended its record of catching drugs cheats.
“Correspondingly, all those athletes who took Meldonium in small concentrations until March 1 have already been cleared”, the sports minister added. “Russian Federation can not expect to compete if it refuses to provide antidoping officials full access to its athletes”, Tygart said in an article published on Wednesday by The New York Times.
The UK agency said that of 247 tests overseen from November past year to early this month, 99 were unable to be carried out because it proved impossible to locate an athlete.
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A decision on whether they will be reinstated for the Rio Olympics will be announced on June 17.
