Rome - Olympic road race silver medallist Davide Rebellin is among the six latest athletes who failed doping tests at the Beijing Olympics, Italian news reports said on Tuesday night. The Italian Olympic Committee confirmed on its website that one of its male athletes was among the six suspects, but did not identify the cyclist.

The International Olympic Committee announced earlier Tuesday that six athletes had submitted seven positives samples for the latest generation of the blood-booster EPO (CERA) at retests of the Beijing Games samples.

The IOC said it retested 948 samples, 847 for CERA and 101 for insulin after reliable test methods were introduced after the August 2008 Olympics. A total 4,770 tests were carried out at the Games.

Rebellin, 37, won the Fleche Wallone race in Belgium for the third time in his career recently. He also has wins at Paris-Nice, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Amstel Gold Race.(dpa)