Russia’s Tatyana Tomashova has been banned from athletics for 10 years and stripped of the silver medal she won in the women’s 1500m at the 2012 Olympic Games.
Tomashova was punished after testing positive in 2021 for anabolic steroids in retests of her out-of-competition samples from 21 June 2012 and 17 July 2012, the court of arbitration for sport said.
The 49-year-old is one of six athletes who finished in the top nine of the London final to have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Immediately after what has been called the “dirtiest race in history” Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey, who finished 10th, told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I don’t believe I’m competing on a level playing field.”
The two-time world champion Tomashova originally finished fourth but was upgraded after the Turkish runners Asli Cakir Alptekin and Gamze Bulut lost their medals for doping, with Bahrain’s Maryam Yusuf Jamal crossing the line third but later promoted to first.
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The Ethiopia-born Swede Abeba Aregawi, who also had an anti-doping violation in 2016 but escaped a ban, received her reallocated bronze medal in a special ceremony at the Paris Olympics only last month. That medal will now be upgraded to silver.
