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| Ramzi's failed test was announced in April following last year's gold in Beijing [GALLO/GETTY] |
Bahrain's Olympic champion runner Rashid Ramzi has been stripped of his 1,500m Beijing gold after testing positive for doping.
Sources within the International Olympic committee told press agencies of the decision ahead of an official announcement on Wednesday.
Ramzi tested positive in April for the drug Cera, an advanced version of the blood-boosting drug EPO.
He was one of five athletes from Beijing 2008 who failed tests using retroactive blood samples.
On Tuesday, Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin was stripped of his silver medal in the Beijing road race for a positive Cera test.
The other athletes from Beijing who tested positive were German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, Croatian 800-meter runner Vanja Perisic, and Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka.
They did not win medals.
Three officials with knowledge of the rulings told the Associated Press that the 29-year-old Ramzi had been disqualified.
Appeal
He is expected to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
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"Cheats cannot prosper in our sport and people will realise that sooner or later...but it also shows the quality of our testing procedures now"
Former 1,500m champion Sebastian Coe
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The Moroccan-born Ramzi was the only gold medalist from Beijing caught using performance-enhancing drugs, after giving Bahrain its first Olympic track and field gold medal with victory in the 1,500.
He is banned from the 2012 London Olympics and could be banned from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for two years.
Sebastian Coe, who won two 1,500m Olympic titles and is an IAAF vice president, praised the stripping of Ramzi's medal.
"That was the right decision," Coe said.
"Cheats cannot prosper in our sport and people will realise that sooner or later.
"Unfortunately, that was high profile and we can do without it, but it also shows the quality of our testing procedures now."
At the time of the failed test in April, the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) said: "The BOC apologises for receiving such news from the International Olympic Committee since it ensured Ramzi went through all the necessary doping tests before the games and they were all negative."
Silver upgrade
Asbel Kipruto Kiprop of Kenya stands to be upgraded from silver to gold in the 1,500m.
Nicolas Willis of New Zealand could go from bronze to silver, and fourth-place finisher Mehdi Baala of France would get the bronze.
The IOC previously disqualified nine athletes for doping at the Beijing Games.
They included Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska who was stripped of her silver medal, and North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, whose silver and bronze medals were revoked.
A sixth athlete was initially found positive in the retesting process, but women's weightlifter Yudelquis Contreras was cleared by the Dominican Olympic Committee after the B-sample came back negative.
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