The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to re-test doping samples given at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin before the next edition in Sochi, Russia, subjecting them to the latest methods of detection. The international body has kept every sample given by top athletes since the 2004 Summer Games in Athens in a huge freezer at its anti-doping laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, in the hope that previously undetected doping can be exposed. "I think it is one of the strongest deterrents that the IOC has," IOC medical and scientific director Richard Budgett told AFP.

LONDON (Reuters) - British basketball will benefit from a seven million pounds funding package as it seeks to put together a team capable of challenging for a medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016. UK Sport, the government body responsible for funding Britain's Olympic sports, announced the figure on Friday having already agreed a reprieve for basketball which originally had its funding withdrawn in December.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Friday said it had rejected an appeal by Taiwan's Chu Mu-yen against his exclusion as a candidate for election to the IOC Athletes' Commission on the grounds of unfair campaigning. In a statement, the Swiss-based tribunal said it had upheld last August's decision by the International Olympic Committee to bar the 2004 Athens taekwondo gold medallist and 2008 Beijing bronze winner from the election race.

By Sudipto Ganguly MUMBAI, March 8 (Reuters) - India has welcomed the IOC's invitation to attend a meeting at its headquarters in Switzerland and sees it as a positive step towards its return to the Olympic fold, a top government official told Reuters on Friday. The IOC banned the country after refusing to recognise the results of Indian Olympic Association (IOA) elections held on Dec. 5, which led to a tainted official being named as its new secretary general, because of government interference.