Two more athletes have tested positive for banned substance at the ongoing Beijing Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday.

The IOC has decided to exclude Kim Jong-su of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Vietnamese gymnast Do Thi Ngan Thuong from the Beijing Games, IOC press director Giselle Davies said at a press conference.

Kim has tested positive for propanolol after taking bronze in men's 10-meter air pistol on Aug. 9 and silver in the men's 50-meter pistol final on August 12, she said.

IOC chief medical official Arne Ljungqvist said he took Kim's case as "a deliberate intake" of propanolol, a blocking agent that prevents trembling and is banned only in certain sports such as shooting and archery.

"I cannot interpret the findings in any other way than on this deliberate intake because it's of importance in that particular sport and the consequences are obvious," he said.

The IOC has asked the shooting sports federation to modify the results, and Kim's bronze in the 10-meter pistol events now goes to Jason Turner from the United States. In the 50-meter event, the silver now goes to Tan Zongliang from China and bronze to Vladimir Isakov from Russia.

Kim, born on Jan. 1, 1977, took bronze in 50-meter pistol at Athens in 2002 and had expected gold in Beijing. He scored 660.2 points in the 50-meter event in Beijing, 0.2 point behind Jin Jong Oh from South Korea.

His personal best results scored 684.5 points in 10-meter air pistol at the World Cup in Guangzhou, southern China, in 2006.

The IOC also announced on Friday the exclusion of Vietnamese gymnast Do Thi Ngan Thuong from the Beijing Games.

She ranked 59th with 52.100 points in individual all-around in women's qualification on Aug. 10, and was later found to have taken furosemide, a fairly common drug among women in premenstrual tension.

Ljungqvist blamed her case on "poor information" for the young athlete who doesn't have the necessary knowledge regarding what is not allowed to take.

According to the Games' Info System, Do Thi Ngan Thuong, born on March 10, 1989, was the first gymnast from Vietnam to compete at the Olympic Games. She was invited to take part in the Beijing Olympics by the Tripartite Commission.

She left her family at seven to further her gymnastics career and train in China.

"I felt sad and I missed home," she was quoted as saying in the Info System's brief athlete biography, which added that she "passed the time by concentrating on her training."

The gymnast's best personal record was a 110th ranking in individual all-around at the 2007 Stuttgart World Championships.

Earlier this week, Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno was announced to be the first athlete to test positive during the official Olympic doping control period.

The 27-year-old tested positive for EPO, a hormone helping enhance muscles, making her the 85th doping offender since the IOC introduced doping tests in the 1968 Mexico Olympics.

In response to a German journalist's doubt over the unusually few doping cases at the Beijing Games, Ljungqvist said the IOC actually expects a fairly low figure.

He said many international sports federations have conducted intensive competition testing in the months before the Games, instead of during the Games. "We have also seen the consequences that some athletes have been found doped before the Games but did not appear here."

"Hopefully the athletes who are here competing are clean," he added.

Meanwhile, all medalists and other athletes in the final heat will be tested, irrespective of how many tests they may have been subjected to in the course of the Olympic Games, he said in response to a reporter's question over how many times the IOC dope-tested Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who has scooped six golds by Friday.

The IOC has pledged to make the Beijing Games a "clean" one and planned a record high of 4,500 tests through the Olympic period which started on July 27 and will run through Aug. 24. It is a 25 percent increase from the 3,600 tests in Athens where 26 doping cases were reported.

By Friday, the IOC has completed 2,203 doping tests, of which 1,250 are pre-competition tests, 1,720 in urine and 483 in blood.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2008)