The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) banned two Bulgarian weightlifters athletes, Georgi Markov and Alan Tsagaev (above), for life while the other nine members of the team received four-year bans.

Bulgaria’s Sports Ministry has stripped the country’s weightlifting federation of its licence for financial mismanagement and a major doping scandal that saw the country's top athletes banned.

The ministry said late Wednesday that it had refused to renew the federation's licence because it had "breached the anti-doping regulations and sports ethics ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games and marred Bulgaria's sports prestige."

After the Games, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) banned two Bulgarian weightlifters athletes, Georgi Markov and Alan Tsagaev, for life while the other nine members of the team received four-year bans. The federation was also fined USD 465 000.

Ahead of the 2008 Olympics, all eight men and three women on Bulgaria's preliminary weightlifting squad had tested positive for the anabolic steroid metandienon.

23 weightlifting clubs from around the country on Tuesday formed an alternative Bulgarian national weightlifting federation, adding they would apply for a licence from the sports ministry and the IWF.