IOC rejects new test

The International Olympic Committee have elected to continue using a combined blood and urine test for the banned performance-enhancing drug erythropoietin (EPO).

It had been thought that the IOC would move to just the French urine test, recently been approved by the International Cycling Union.

But that test has been rejected by the Committee's Medical Commission.

In a statement, the Commission said: "The proper detection method is a combined EPO blood and urine test. Both the blood sample and urine sample must return abnormal results."

Under the present system testers first analyse the blood of athletes.

If they find the blood values are outside certain parameters, another test is ordered on their urine to focus on EPO.

"Taking into consideration the current knowledge that urine alone is not sufficient at the moment to give a final result... we decided a urine sample should be sustained by abnormal blood parameters"

It had been thought that after IOC president Jacques Rogge had approved the urine only test, it was only a matter of time before it was used.

"Personally, I wish for the IOC to recognise only one test, the French test," he told the French newspaper Le Monde.