Updated: February 11, 2010, 2:22 PM ET

WADA: More than 30 will not compete

ESPN.com news services

More than 30 athletes have been barred from competing in the Vancouver Olympics after failing pre-Games testing, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, David Howman, told The New York Times on Wednesday.

"It's a bit like before Beijing, when 70 athletes didn't go to the Games because they had tested positive beforehand," Howman told The Times. "The pre-Games testing is pretty intensive. We can say it was effective because there are some athletes who didn't come."

WADA does not have the names of the banned athletes or the sports they compete in, Howman told the newspaper.

"To our knowledge, no Americans were involved," Mike English, chief of sport performance for the USOC, said, according to The Times.