BUCHAREST, Romania -- Middle-distance runners Elena Antoci and Cristina Vasiloiu tested positive for the blood booster EPO and could be dropped from the Romanian Olympic team, an official said Thursday.
Octavian Morariu, the head of the Romanian Olympic Committee, said that an initial test from a laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, showed a presence of EPO in the athletes' blood. He said he was waiting for the results of a second test from the laboratory to confirm the results.
Because of the positive test, Antoci and Vasiloiu did not leave for the Beijing Olympics on Sunday with the rest of the team, Morariu said in an interview with Realitatea TV.
"When we left for the Olympics I had the (doping) results for all the athletes, except these two," Morariu said from Beijing. "If there is the tiniest doubt about them, they will not compete."
Antoci and Vasiloiu were both due to compete in the 1,500-meter race, and the news comes on the same day that seven Russian female athletes were provisionally suspended by the IAAF for doping-related matters.
The Romanian National Institute for Sporting Medicine first tested Antoci and Vasiloiu on July 16, and asked for further tests to be done, outside Romania.
Romanian middle-distance runner Liliana Popescu, who runs the 800 and 1,500, was dropped from the Olympics team earlier this month after failing a doping test. The three athletes have the same Romanian trainer, Eleodor Rosca.
Neither of the runners or Rosca have commented on the tests.
