THE Olympics medical chief struck out last night at "systematic, planned doping" involving seven of Russia's top female track and field athletes and warned the nation's officials would also come under scrutiny.
"It is frustrating to find such planned cheating is still going on," said the chairman of the International Olympic Committee medical commission, Arne Lundqvist.
The world track and field body and the World Anti-Doping Agency are monitoring the Russian investigation into the manipulation of a drug test involving the athletes.
"The DNA analysis shows urine not belonging to the athletes - they have a case to answer," Mr Lundqvist told a news conference in Beijing.
The seven women, six of whom have been selected for the Games, included the world's leading 800-metre and 1500-metre runner, Yelena Soboleva, and the Athens Olympic silver medallist Tatyana Tomashova. They have been suspended, pending the results of the Russian investigation.
Both the International Association of Athletics Federations and the doping agency are keen to see if the Russian investigation looks carefully at any involvement of Russian officials who may have been implicated in assisting the women to deceive the drug testing system.
Mr Lundqvist, who is closely involved with the IAAF, said such investigations would take some months. He said the issue would not be dealt with during the Beijing Games and that any officials coming to the Olympics would not be questioned.
But the results of the Russian investigation would be scrutinised, he said.
"This is an example of systematic planned doping and it is one of the examples [under tougher new IAAF rules] for exercising the longer ban of four years. The IAAF has done a really good job of revealing a very bad doping story."
The Russian Sports Minister, Vitaly Mutko, has already publicly attacked the IAAF for the timing of the announcement - on the eve of the Games - and has threatened legal action "if we see that the international sporting organisations have not followed the letter of the law".
But Mr Mutko also said the athletes would be punished if were guilty.
The IAAF targeted the squad after the women were unfailingly prompt in turning up for drug tests and their results were suspiciously "too clean".
A 16-month investigation by drug-testers from the IAAF showed the DNA profile of urine samples from the women did not match other samples provided by them.
Other athletes involved in the urine manipulation inquiry are Olga Yegorova (who tested positive to EPO before the world titles but was allowed to compete after problems with the testing procedure); the distance runners Yuliya Fomenko and Svetlana Cherkasova; the former hammer world-record holder Gulfiya Khanafeyeva; and the current world silver medallist discus thrower, Darya Pishchalnikova.