Scandals have not tarnished Athens Games - IOC

A string of doping scandals that have resulted in two Olympic athletics champions losing their gold medals have not tarnished the Athens Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said yesterday.

So far seven athletes have failed dope tests while another three, including Greek top sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, dropped out of the Games following doping test violations.

"We should keep things in perspective.We have seven positive doping tests and three doping violations and in Sydney we had 11 (in total)," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said comparing Athens with the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

"There are 10,500 athletes (in the Games) and there have been some wonderful successes."

Davies said while doping figures in Athens were not much higher than Sydney, a 25 per cent rise in testing could result in more cases.

Hungarian Olympic discus champion Robert Fazekas on Tuesday became the second athletics gold medallist to forfeit his title after breaking doping rules.

Irina Korzhanenko of Russia was stripped of her women's Olympic shot put gold medal on Sunday after testing positive for a steroid.

So far 2,015 of the expected 3,000 IOC-run drug tests have been completed.

Games sponsors are also backing the IOC's drive to root out doping from the Games.

"The sponsors are very happy with the work we are doing," IOC's marketing commission chief Gerhard Heidberg told Reuters. "They support our work."

"The more athletes that are caught cheating in our Games, the cleaner athletics we will have," Games spokesman Michael Zacharatos said.