Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan are the others who have had three or more weightlifters test positive within a 12-month period.

Batuhan Yuksel, an 81 kilograms silver medallist at the European Championships in Armenia this year, has tested positive for the anabolic steroid oxymetholone.

Yuksel, 23, improved his career best total by 18kg when he finished second behind Oscar Reyes from Italy on 339kg.

His sample was taken on July 28, a non-competition date for him, according to the latest update from the International Testing Agency (ITA), which carries out all anti-doping procedures for the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

In April, the ITA announced that two of Turkey’s team at the European Championships had tested positive for the steroid methasterone, 19-year-old former world junior champion Hakan Kurnaz and Pelinsu Bayav, who failed to make a total in the women's 49kg.

Yuksel is 28th in the Paris rankings at the Olympic weight of 89kg. 

Turkey’s best-placed athletes in Paris qualifying are Ferdi Hardal and Yusuf Genc in the men’s 61kg and 73kg, and Duygu Alici and Dilara Narin in the women’s 49kg and 81kg.

Turkey is due to host the 2024 European Championships in Antalya in February, an Olympic qualifier.

Turkey, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Turkmenistan can be suspended for up to four years or fined up to $500,000 (£394,375/€460,130) under Article 12 of the IWF’s anti-doping rules, depending on the deliberations of an independent panel which will be called into action once the cases are closed.

Under the separate rules of the Paris 2024 qualifying system, nations with three or more doping violations, which lead to suspensions of four years or more, during the period between July 2021 and July 2024 are automatically excluded from the Olympics.

Besides the five who tested positive at the Asian Championships in South Korea between May 5 and 13, Kazakhstan also had four teenage members of its national team suspended after positive tests carried out by its national anti-doping organisation.

All nine of Kazakhstan’s provisionally suspended athletes tested positive for SARMS (selective androgen receptor modulators), banned substances that provide muscle mass growth.

Kazakhstan has a bad historic doping record and forfeited four gold medals at the London 2012 Olympic Games, when stored samples were reanalysed in 2016.

Turkmenistan had three athletes test positive for methasterone between February 15 and May 18 this year, two of them sisters whose father is national youth coach.

Ukraine had three positives in the six months between October 2022 and March this year, all for steroids.

The ITA has also confirmed a three-year suspension, after a Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing, of the Mauritius lifter Anthony Madanamoothoo, who won an African Championships medal at 77kg in 2018 and now lifts at 102kg.

Madanamoothoo’s offence was evading or refusing a test.