ATHENS (Reuters) - Five weightlifters were banned from the Olympics after failing drugs tests, officials said on Thursday, as doping scandals continued to dominate the first week of the Games.

Host nation Greece has already suffered a black eye over the antics of its two top sprinters who withdrew from the Games on Wednesday after a furor over missed dope tests.

In another rumbling controversy, Iran escaped sanction for the failure of its team flag-bearer, judo world champion Arash Miresmaeili, to fight Ehud Vaks last Sunday because of Tehran's political boycott of Israel.

A source in the sport's governing body said the International Judo Federation (IJF) had now accepted that Miresmaeili had a genuine medical reason for showing up too heavy to fight.

Weightlifters from Morocco, Moldova, Hungary, India and Turkey tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and were expelled, distracting attention from arenas where exciting new standards were being set in swimming and gymnastics.

No issue has generated as much heat at the Athens Games as drug use, especially after the uproar over Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou threw Greeks into depression on the eve of what should have been a great triumph -- opening the country's first Olympics in 108 years last Friday.

The two sprinters, who missed a random drug test and wound up in hospital after a mystery motorcycle crash, withdrew from the Games Wednesday, maintaining their innocence even as many of their countrymen turned against them.

Their withdrawal spared the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the duty of expelling them and further embarrassing the host nation, the land where the Olympic Games began 2,700 years ago and where they were revived in 1896.

GREAT SORROW

"It is an issue which has caused great sorrow to us," said Athens Games spokesman Serafim Kotrotsos. "But now we have to focus our attention on the Games themselves."

One irony of the Kenteris/Thanou scandal was that they departed on the day when an Olympic sporting event was played in Ancient Olympia for the first time since the ancient Games were abolished in 393 A.D.. More than 80 shot-putters competed on sport's most historic site.

Doping scandals have long besmirched weightlifting and the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) had hoped Athens 2004 would offer them a fresh start.

The sport's place on the Olympic program came under threat following a wave of doping scandals four years ago in Sydney.

In a superb night's competition in the pool Wednesday, Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband put himself on the same level as swimming greats Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller and Alexander Popov by landing the men's 100 meters freestyle for the second time.

"I was in a kind of trance, in a flow, doing my job and not thinking," van den Hoogenband said after his historic triumph.

"I was touching the wall and the camera was zooming in and I'd won. It's great," he said before promptly setting his sights on a unique hat-trick in Beijing.

But the victory took its toll.

Van den Hoogenband and world champion Popov were both eliminated in the heats of the men's 50 meters freestyle in a major shock early Thursday.

Italy had little to celebrate at the rowing regatta. The Olympic champion men's quadruple sculls and the world champion lightweight men's doubles teams both failed to make the finals.

HAMM WINS

Paul Hamm's come-from-behind triumph in the Olympic gymnastics arena ended 52 years of Soviet and Asian domination of the men's all-round competition and vindicated the Americans' decision to completely revamp their training methods.

Since 1952, the men's all-round gold had belonged exclusively to gymnasts from the former Soviet Union, Japan and China.

For German rider Bettina Hoy, Wednesday was a rollercoaster day of emotions in the battle for three-day eventing gold.

France initially won the team silver but then took gold after Hoy was penalized for crossing the starting line before she was ready in the show-jumping stage.

Germany challenged the decision, had the time penalties revoked and their gold reinstated. After all that drama, Hoy put the controversy firmly behind her to claim the individual gold and then burst into tears.

"I just got very emotional all of a sudden," she said. "It takes a while for all that to sink in. I had been under a lot of pressure."

France were lodging an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Friday.

The Netherlands won a last-minute victory in the men's hockey Thursday, but their coach was not happy and said they should be playing better, even though they are the only team not to have lost a game so far.

The Dutch, going for their third Olympic gold in a row, squeezed past South Africa 3-2 in an agonizingly long finale where they had to save three penalties after the final hooter.

"It...would be nicer to bring those points to the ledger with a good performance level. I'm not pleased with the way we're playing," said Dutch coach Terry Walsh.