Princess Haya, president of the FEI, the international governing body for equestrianism, has expressed her delight at how "clean" the London 2012 Olympics were for the sport, following confirmation that all human and equine samples taken during the events at Greenwich Park tested negative for banned substances.

More human and equine testing took place at London 2012 than at any previous Olympic Games, with all medallists’ horses tested, as well as all fourth-placed horses. Random testing was also carried out, with horses being picked by computerised selection.

For human testing across the games, all top four finishers, plus two other athletes selected at random, were tested by the International Olympic Committee, along with other individuals selected at random.

Haya said: "We had a clean Youth Olympic Games [in Singapore in 2010], a clean FEI World Equestrian Games and now we’ve crowned it with a clean Olympic Games in London. We knew that fair play and clean sport was the only way to produce top sport in the Olympic equestrian events and we are very proud that we have achieved that goal.

"The fact that all human and equine samples came back negative demonstrates the success of the FEI Clean Sport campaign, which has resulted in a major reduction in the number of positives in the Olympic disciplines over the past two and a half years."

However, Haya admitted that the sport should not be too pleased with itself, noting: "The equestrian community shouldn’t be thinking of this as a triumph; having a clean sport should be our normal day to day business, but now that we’ve had three major championships that were the most heavily tested ever and they were 100 per cent clean, we can hold our heads up high and say that yes, this is a victory.

"We haven’t reached this point by resting on our laurels, there’s always work to be done and I am incredibly proud of the FEI’s performance over the four years since Hong Kong."

The equestrian events at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games took place in Hong Kong, when there were six positive drug tests for the sport, leading to the FEI setting up an anti-doping commission, which reported directly to Arne Ljungvist, chairman of the medical commission of the International Olympic Committee and a vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Sportcal