Beijing - A top Chinese anti-doping official on Wednesday hailed her country's "firm stance" against drug abuses in sport after eight athletes were banned following positive doping tests in the first half of this year. 

"Finding drug cheats is not an embarrassment to us," Yuan Hong, head of the Chinese Olympic Committee's Anti-Doping Commission, said of the eight positive tests. 

"On the contrary, it says what a firm stance we take in the fight against doping," Yuan told the government's Xinhua news agency. 

The eight athletes include two members of national teams: top men's backstroke swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng; and 19-year-old men's 55-kilogram freestyle wrestler Luo Meng, who was considered a good prospect for the 2012 Olympics. 

The other six offenders were members of provincial diving, athletics, swimming and weightlifting teams. 

Ouyang, Luo and their coaches were all banned for life last month, while the entire provincial teams affected were banned from next year's national games, the agency said. 

"Ouyang's ban proves nothing but our determination to weed out dope cheats among Chinese athletes," it quoted Yuan as saying. 

"No matter how excellent an athlete is, he or she will be severely punished once tested positive," she said. 

The positive tests came from 5,236 tests carried out this year, more than 80 percent of them unannounced, out-of-competition tests, mostly on athletes preparing for the Olympics. 

"These positive cases also prove that the fight against doping is a long, hard task because there are always some people believing they can get away with it," the agency quoted Zhao Jian, the deputy head of China's anti-doping agency, as saying. 

Chinese sports officials in January reported a record low of 0.2 per cent positive doping tests last year, but warned of continuing problems in sports such as weightlifting. 

Fifteen positive results from 10,238 tests last year was the lowest ratio since China began its fight against doping in 1990, the officials said. 

The International Olympic Committte (IOC) last month approved tougher rules designed to make it impossible for doping offenders caught at the Beijing Olympics to participate in future games. 

The IOC said the new rules would apply to all major doping offences, including steroid use, which normally carries a two-year suspension for first-time offenders. 

It plans to conduct 4,500 doping tests on the 10,500 athletes expected to compete in Beijing, up from 3,600 tests in Athens four years ago. 

The agency said Yuan and other top anti-doping officials were also conducting a nationwide crackdown on suppliers and producers of performance-enhancing drugs in the run-up to next month's Olympics. (dpa)