Ten more Beijing medallists disqualified after re-testing

ZURICH ( Reuters) - Ten more athletes, mostly weightlifters and wrestlers, have been stripped of the medals they won at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after failing doping tests in re-testing of samples, the International Olympic Committee ( IOC) said on Thursday.

They were among a total of 16 athletes named in the latest batch of disqualifications from the Games.

A total of 98 samples have come back as positive for banned substances in re-analysis from the 2008 and 2012 Games as the IOC has attempted to root out cheats.

The athletes named on Thursday included three silver medallists - Khasan Baroev ( Russia) in the men's 96-120 kilo Greco-Roman wrestling, Vitaliy Rahimov ( Azerbaijan) in the men's 55-60 kilo Greco-Roman wrestling and Irina Nekrassova ( Kazakhstan) in the women's 63 kilo weightlifting.

Others included four bronze medallists in weightlifting - Russians Khadzhimurat Akkaev (men's 94 kilos) and Dmitry Lapikov (men's 105 kilos), Kazakhstan's Mariya Grabovetskaya (women's 75+ kilos) and Ukraine's Natalya Davydova (women's 69 kilos).

Two athletics bronze medallists, Ukraine's Denys Yurchenko (men's pole vault) and Greek Chrysopigi Devetzi (women's triple jump), were disqualified along with Kazakhstan's Asset Mambetov, who took part in the men's 84-96kg Greco-Roman wrestling.

The IOC stores samples for a decade to test with newer methods or to analyse performance-enhancing substances that have yet to be identified.

(Writing by Brian Homewood, editing by Pritha Sarkar)