The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced its decision to disqualify Athens Olympics champion Fani Chalkia from the Beijing Olympics after the Greek 400m hurdler's B sample turned positive.

The IOC announced Chalkia's exclusion from the on-going Beijing Olympic Games on Monday night and asked the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to give further sanctions.

The Greek Olympic Committee has suspended the 29-year-old athlete after she was found using banned substances Methyltrienolone, an anabolic steroid which the IOC describes as "a steroid with potentially serious effects on health".

Chalkia was training with the team in Fukui, Japan when she took a pre-competition doping control test on Aug. 10.

The IOC was informed of the positive result on Aug. 16 and at the athlete request, the B sample was tested on Aug. 17, which turned out to be positive for the same banned substance.

The IOC also went step forward to ask the Greek authorities to investigate Chalkia's coach George Panagiotopoulos for any anti-doping rule violation.

"This decision shows the determination of the IOC to broaden the fight against doping to those behind athletes," said the IOC in a statement.

It has been the fourth and highest-profile doping case at the Beijing Games since the IOC started doping tests on July 27.

Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno was kicked out of the games after testing positive for EPO. Kim Jong-su of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has been stripped of the silver and bronze medals he won in shooting events after testing positive for beta-blocker drugs and Vietnamese female gymnast Do Thi Ngan Thuong also failed a drug test.

To make the Games cleanest ever, the IOC planned to carry out no less than 4,500 tests, a 25 percent increase from those at the Athens Olympic Games.

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2008)