The Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC) has decided not to stop the national weightlifting team from participating in the Beijing Olympics despite a doping scandal, local press reported Monday.

The scandal flared up last Friday when Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation (BWF) president Anton Kodjabashev confirmed that eleven members of the national weightlifting team have been found to have used prohibited substances.

All of Bulgaria's best weightlifters who have been preparing for the Beijing Olympics were found to have used doping: samples taken from them on June 8 and 9 tested positive for the anabolic steroid methanedienone.

BOC president Stefka Kostadinova said that the Bulgarian delegation to the Olympics will have a weightlifting team. She said they would ask BWF to prepare and send a team to Beijing, even if it is a back-up team.

Kostadinova said that she hoped for negative B-samples.

"Unfortunately, there is hardly a case of positive A-samples and negative B-samples," she added. The results of the B-samples are due a month from now.

She hopes that the International Olympic Committee would not punish the Bulgarian weightlifters and that BWF would produce a well-prepared team B.

If, however, IOC take a decision for a punishment, BOC will have to punish BWF, including by revoking its licence - probably for two years.

Also, the coach of the weightlifting team and the federation president will be sanctioned, and the subsidies for weightlifting will be cut down.

(Xinhua News Agency July 1, 2008)