Following allegations that one-third of endurance races at the Olympics and world championships from 2001 to 2012 were won by athletes who recorded suspicious blood tests, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has pledged to adopt a "zero tolerance" approach to any Olympic athlete found guilty of doping, Yahoo Sports reports.

"If there should be cases involving results at Olympic Games, the IOC will react with zero tolerance with our usual policy," IOC President Thomas Bach said.

The latest scandal to mire athletics stems from German broadcaster ARD and the Sunday Times in Britain's report that said 800 athletes competing in disciplines ranging from the 800 meters to marathon, registered blood values that are deemed by global anti-doping standards as "suspicious."

According to the Yahoo Sports report, ARD and the Sunday Times obtained access to the results of 12,000 blood tests involving 5,000 athletes. The news agencies' report found that athletes won 146 medals -including - 55 golds with suspicious tests.

As noted by Yahoo Sports, the International Association of Athletics Federations and the anti-doping agency were already investigating accusations made in two previous ARD documentaries of alleged systematic doping and cover-ups in Russia. The latest one, "Doping - Top Secret: The Shadowy World of Athletics" recently broadcast a few weeks before the world championships in Beijing, which run from Aug. 22 to Aug. 30.

"We made it very clear and we agreed that WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] is our competence in the fight against doping and they will inquire into these allegations," Bach said.

"But at this time, we have nothing more than allegations and we have to respect the presumption of innocence for the athletes."

The Yahoo article also points out that samples given by 10 medal winners at the London 2012 Olympic Games are believed to be suspicious, according to the Sunday Times.