The IOC says it will not hesitate to retest drug samples from the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi if there is evidence that doping controls were manipulated, according to the Olympic body's medical director.
A Russian whistleblower told CBS's 60 Minutes program that four Russian gold medallists from the Sochi Olympics used steroids and local security agents worked as doping control officers during the Games.
"The IOC will follow up any issues very carefully," medical director Dr Richard Budgett told The Associated Press. "We did have international experts in the lab monitoring all the testing going on. We made it as secure as we could."
Budgett said the International Olympic Committee had stored all doping samples from Sochi in its lab at Lausanne in Switzerland. The IOC retains Olympic samples for 10 years to allow for re-analysis with improved testing methods.
"We will consider whether re-analysis will help us ascertain if there was any manipulation or not," Budgett said in a telephone interview. "There is no decision on that yet. But if there is evidence of manipulation, we would not hesitate to test."
Normally, the IOC prefers to wait until near the end of the 10-year statute of limitations because it can use the very-latest testing techniques, but the Sochi allegations could lead to earlier re-analysis.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced on Tuesday it was expanding its investigation into doping inside Russian sports. The move came two days after Vitaly Stepanov told 60 Minutes he had conversations with the former director of the Moscow anti-doping lab, who told him there was a "Sochi List" that included four champions from the 2014 Games. They were not identified.
Stepanov said the former lab director, Grigory Rodchenkov, told him agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) acted as doping control officers during the Olympics, which severely compromised the lab's integrity.
WADA President Craig Reedie said the claims "offer real cause for concern, as they contain new allegations regarding attempts to subvert the anti-doping process at the Sochi Games".
WADA had a team of observers in Sochi monitoring the entire doping control process.
Natalya Zhelanova, the anti-doping adviser to Russia's sports minister, said the ministry would cooperate with any WADA investigation.
Budgett, meanwhile, said he had no information to report on the results of retesting of hundreds of samples from the Beijing and London Olympics. The IOC began retesting samples recently to weed out any drug cheats before they competed in August at the Rio Summer Games.
"The process is still ongoing," Budgett said.
Any positive findings could result in retrospective disqualifications and stripping of medals.
