Athens - Thousands of samples from drug tests on athletes in Athens will be stored in deep freeze and re-examined at a later date as new anti-doping technology develops, Olympic chief Jacques Rogge said on Sunday.
Vowing no let-up in the war on doping, Rogge said the record number of drug cheats unmasked at the Athens Games was proof that the hardline approach was working.
So far a total of 23 athletes - including two gold medal winners - have been excluded from the Olympics for doping offences.
And Rogge warned on Sunday that figure could rise as more sophisticated tests were developed to detect the latest designer drugs concocted by the cheaters' laboratories.
"There is that possibility," Rogge admitted when asked if the number of doping cases from the 2004 Games could rise in the coming months.
"We will take the samples from the games and put them in deep freeze.
"If new tests emerge we will re-test those samples.
"We can do that for up to eight years after the games.
"And if the new tests reveal anything, the results will be changed."
Rogge said drug-testing at the Olympics had increased by 20% since the Sydney Games in an effort to rid the sport of the problem.
But drugs would never be 100% eradicated from the Olympics.
As of Sunday, some 3 500 tests had been carried out during an extended drug sweep that began when the Olympic village opened for business on July 30.
At past Olympics, drug-testing had been restricted to the period of competition of the games.
Rogge said there would be no let-up in the anti-doping blitz.
"We are almost testing one in four athletes. We will increase this vastly," Rogge said.
"There are other measures in the pipeline that we will continue to work on."
Those measures would include developing new doping tests in secret in order to keep drug cheats on their toes, as well as more out of competition tests on athletes in professional sports in the United States.
Despite voicing satisfaction with the results of the present crackdown, Rogge acknowledged that the war could never be completely won.
"My dream that will never be fulfilled is that we continue as we have done with our extensive fight against doping and that we have no positive tests," said Rogge.
"But this is naivety. This will never occur.
"The Olympics has 10 500 athletes, it does not have 10 500 saints.
"There will always be cheats."
