Greece’s Olympic committee said in a statement Monday that the athlete had been expelled from the Olympic village. The name of the substance has not be disclosed, nor the name of the athlete.
This is the fourth anti-doping violation during the Olympic Games in Paris.
A history of doping at Olympic Games
Greece has a history of doping at the Olympics. At the Games in Athens in 2004 five athletes from Greece were banned after violating an anti-doping rule. The most famous incident was the two sprinters Ekatherina Thanou and Christos Tzekos who both refused or evaded doping tests. Thamou were banned for two years, while Tzekos were given a four year suspension for tampering and trafficking.
At the Beijing Games in 2008 Athanasia Tsoumeleka and Fani Halkia were both banned. Tsoumeleka tested positive for CERA (third generation EPO) while Halkia tested positive for methyltrienolone.
The first doping cases related to doping and athletes from Greece happened in the Los Angeles Games in 1984. Here Anna Verouli (track and field) and Serafin Grammatikopolous (weightlifting) both tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone.
Two greek athletes cleared
The Chinese news agency Xinhua reports that two Greek athletes has been allowed to compete at the Games despite testing positive for a prohibited substances. A pole vaulter was cleared after a substance originating from the consumption of meat was found in an urine sample.
In mid July a Greek race walker was also cleared for the Olympic Games even though she had returned a positive test.
China has put a lot of focus on positive doping cases as a result of contamination. This after media reported that as many as 23 swimmers from China had tested positive for a banned substance, but that both Chinada and WADA had cleared them. Investigation found that the positive tests were a result of contaminated food.