In the first drug scandal of the Summer Games, two Russian athletes were stripped of bronze medals Sunday by the International Olympic Committee for using performance-enhancing stimulants.
A third Olympian, cyclist Rita Razmaite from Lithuania, also tested positive for drug use, but she did not medal.All three athletes were found to have used a new drug called bromantan, a stimulant produced by the Russian Pharmaceutical Institute.
Michele Verdier, media director for the Olympic committee, said this was the first time bromantan had been discovered at the Games.
"It enhances performance and can be considered a masking agent," Verdier said.
These were the first three drug suspensions at the Atlanta Olympics. There were five in Barcelona in 1992, and 10 in Seoul in 1988.
The two Russian athletes stripped of medals were Andrei Korneev, a swimmer who finished third in the 200 meter breaststroke, and Zafar Gouliev, a bronze medalist in Greco Roman wrestling.
Besides losing his bronze medal, Korneev also could be banned from swimming for two years by the International Swimming Federation.
The bronze medals won by the Russian athletes likely will be given to the fourth-place finishers in each event.
Until Sunday, only one other athlete from Russia or the old Soviet Union had ever tested positive for drugs at the Olympics, and that was in 1992.
A Russian Olympic Committee spokesman said he was not yet convinced that the drugs were taken to enhance performance.
"If this turns out to be doping we'll be very sad," Rudolf Nezvetsky, of the Russian Olympic Committee, told Reuters. "But for us, the matter is still open."