Concern over missing Beijing drugs test results

To have mislaid one drug test result from the Beijing Olympic Games might have been regarded as a misfortune. To have lost "around 300" could be described as carelessness in the extreme – even if, as the International Olympic Committee maintained last night, the mislaying has been strictly temporary. The case of the missing data came to light yesterday when a team of independent observers sent to the Games to oversee drug testing procedures on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency issued a 50-page report on their findings. The 10-strong team – chaired by Briton Sarah Lewis, secretary general of the International Ski Federation – also highlighted a "relatively low" number of athletes tested for the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) and the failure of "nearly half" of the national Olympic committees to provide information about the whereabouts of their athletes for out-of-competition testing.

Another disclosure was that the Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska blamed the positive test she had given for the anabolic steroid methyltestosterone on her husband and coach, Sergei Blonskyi.

In total, 4,770 drug tests were taken by the IOC's medical commission between 27 July, 12 days before the Opening Ceremony, and 24 August, the day of the Closing Ceremony. The fact that a number of results went missing was revealed in the Report of the Independent Observers, published yesterday. "An area that left room for improvement was the administrative reporting of the [Beijing] laboratory," the report states. "Once the laboratory had apparently delivered all reports, it transpired that around 300 test results were missing."

An IOC spokesperson said last night that since the report had been compiled all of the missing results had been traced and that all of the tests involved were negative. Still, news that the results had gone missing will come as a concern, particularly at a time when the IOC has undertaken the task of retesting frozen Beijing samples for the new variant of EPO, Continuous Eryhropoeisis Receptor Activator (CERA). According to the independent observers, the numbers of athletes tested for EPO in Beijing "were relatively low, notably in the sports where the use of EPO has been detected".

Their report includes detailed analyses of the cases of the 11 athletes who gave positive tests – including that of Blonska, who was stripped of the heptathlon silver medal. She was also banned for life, having tested positive in 2003 for the anabolic stanozolol and served a two-year-suspension.

The report states that Blonska: "denied intentionally taking any prohibited substance and claimed to be shocked that a prohibited drug was in her system. She testified that her husband, Sergei Blonskiy, is also her coach and that he was responsible for her training and diet. She indicated they had been having relational difficulties."

Tall tales: Dopey excuses for drug-taking

* Dennis Mitchell US sprinter tested positive for excessive testosterone. Argued that five beers and four acts of copulation with his wife the night before the test were to blame.

* David Martinez Discus thrower tested positive for nandrolone. Spaniard blamed it on eating infected pork. In an attempt to prove his innocence, he kept a pig in his garden and injected it with the steroid. It failed to save his bacon – no traces of the drug were found in his system when he slaughtered the pig and ate it.

* Adri van der Poel Dutch cyclist tested positive for strychnine. Claimed the substance came from doped racing pigeons belonging to his father in law.

* Javier Sotomayor High jump world record holder from Cuba tested positive for cocaine in 1999. In a TV address, Fidel Castro claimed sabotage by CIA.