The IOC has not yet named who those athletes were but they come from five sports and six countries; the 23 positives came out of blood samples recently analyzed. The reanalyzing of blood samples is a program launched by the IOC after improved testing techniques were developed.
Last week, 31 positives were found in retesting athlete samples from the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, out of 454 samples. This retesting of blood samples is not over, the IOC says, though they did not say how many more blood samples they will be reanalyzing.
They did say that performance results of any athletes found to have used banned substances will be stricken from the books and those athletes will be retroactively disqualified and any medals awarded forfeited.
“In total, 265 selected doping samples from the Olympic Games in London in 2012 were reanalysed, all based on intelligence-gathering that began in August 2015,” the IOC said Friday. “The reanalysis programme is ongoing, with the possibility of more results in the coming weeks.”
It is expected athletes testing positive for banned substances will be banned from participating in the upcoming 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics. There has been no word from the IOC about when they will be announcing the suspensions.
Blood samples are kept stored by the IOC for 10 years in order to take advantage of improved testing techniques.