The Olympics were rocked by yet another doping scandal yesterday after it was confirmed that Russian women’s shot put gold medalist Irina Korzhanenko had failed a drug test.

A senior IOC medical source said that Korzhanenko had tested positive for a banned substance believed to be steroids, making her the 14th athlete to be caught in a zero-tolerance anti-doping drive.

“Yes, she failed a drugs test. I think it was steroids, but that will be announced later after an IOC executive board meeting,” the source said.

It is the first time since the Ben Johnson scandal at the 1988 Seoul Games that a gold medalist in the Olympics’ showpiece track and field competition has failed a drugs test.

Korzhanenko, who was stripped of her world indoor title in 1999 for a dope offense, lifted the shot put title last Wednesday in an event staged on the historic site of Olympia, the ancient birthplace of the Games.

“Of course we are very unhappy,” the IOC official said. “It’s very sad and it tarnishes what was intended to be a very symbolic event.” Another shot putter, Uzbekistan’s Olga Shchukina, had already failed a drugs tests following last week’s competition.

A further nine weightlifters, two Greek baseball players and a Kenyan boxer have failed drug tests since the IOC began its drugs sweep on July 30.

Two more athletes, Greek sprint stars Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou pulled out of the Games after failing to take drugs tests on the eve of the Olympics.

The roll-call of shamed athletes has left Athens in danger of becoming remembered as the dirtiest Olympics in history, something officials had warned was a possibility before the Games began.

With IOC President Jacques Rogge declaring a zero tolerance policy to drugs cheats, the 2004 Games have seen a sharp increase in the number of anti-doping controls and ever more sophisticated testing procedures in place.

The worst-hit sport has been weightlifting, which saw Greece’s Leonidas Sampanis stripped of his bronze medal and kicked out of the Games yesterday after confirmation of his failed drug test.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) tested all 260 entrants for the Olympics before competition began in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the scandal that marred the Sydney 2000 games, when three Bulgarians failed tests.

Sampanis, who was acclaimed as a hero after winning the first medal of the Games for hosts Greece, was booted out after twice the legal limit of testosterone was found in his sample.

His expulsion from the Games is a bitter blow to Greek pride that had been left battered and bruised by the scandal surrounding Kenteris and Thanou.

Sampanis and the Greek team’s coach Christos Iakovou had both testified before an IOC disciplinary panel Saturday, claiming the athlete was innocent.

The IOC’s disciplinary commission was unmoved and the executive board expelled him following a meeting of its executive board early yesterday.

Iakovou said the decision to ban Sampanis would have to be accepted although he said it was not logical to have such high testosterone readings.

“This would mean that he took the substance two hours before, but nobody does such a thing at the last minute, why should one?”

Iakovou suggested Sampanis might have been the victim of a sabotage attempt during the control. “Sampanis had asked for an orange juice when he was in the anti-doping room which was full of people, more than 70... much more than there usually are,” he said.

Sampanis handed back his bronze medal after he was excluded from the Games. “He has handed back the medal to the Greek Olympic team a short while ago as he was ordered to do,” a weightlifting official said. It will be returned to the IOC later in the day.

“I’m going crazy, my life is destroyed, my family is destroyed,” Sampanis, who won silver in the 1996 and 2000 Games, told reporters.

“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat for the past three days but there is no way that I have taken anything. Something is very wrong here.”

But the Greek Weightlifting Federation and fellow athletes backed Sampanis, saying the 32-year-old was innocent of any doping offense. “I believe in the innocence of Sampanis and we will try to prove it,” federation President Yiannis Sgouros told reporters without elaborating. “I repeat he is innocent and we must stand by him.”

Fellow weightlifter Pyrros Dimas, who won bronze in the 85 kg on Saturday, said the IOC decision was unfair. “How can you now prove that you are not an elephant. This is unfair, very unfair,” Dimas said with tears in his eyes.