Irish 10,000 metres runner Cathal Lombard has admitted taking banned performance-enhancing drug EPO in a newspaper interview on Monday less than a week before the start of the Athens Games.

Lombard, 28, who failed a test for EPO, or erythropoietin, a blood-boosting substance which enhances endurance, was quoted as saying "hands up, I did it" in the Irish Examiner daily.

"At the moment, subject to looking at all the information, I would be unlikely to contest the findings," Lombard told the paper.

"There was nobody else involved at all. I am not trying to justify what I did in any way," he said. "I am saying this was the case and this is what I did and, hands up, I did it."

His agent Ray Flynn said Lombard had confirmed the failed test in an email.

"I did receive an email from him advising me that he had been informed that he had a positive test for EPO and...he would be coming clean on it," Flynn told RTE state radio.

The Athletic Association of Ireland said on Saturday that Lombard had failed a test for EPO and had been asked to a hearing in Dublin on Tuesday.

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The AAI did not say where or when the athlete failed the test.

Lombard set an Irish 10,000 metres record in California earlier this year and finished 17th in the 10,000 metres final at the 2003 world championships.

Lombard, who was due to compete in the 10,000 metres race at the Athens Games, was due to fly home on Monday, according to media reports.

Irish swimmer Michelle Smith won three golds at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and was banned for four years in August 1998 after being found guilty of tampering with a urine sample.

Irish 1,500 metres runner Geraldine Hendricken was banned for two years in September 2003 after an out-of-competition test showed traces of 19-norandrosterone, a metabolite of a banned anabolic steroid.

The International Olympic Committee said last week that anti-doping blood sampling had been extended to all Olympic sports for the first time in Athens.

Irish athletes are trying to improve on the single silver medal Sonia O'Sullivan won in the 5,000 metres at the Sydney Games in 2000.

The Olympics run from August 13 to 29.