Four Olympians Lose Medals From 2004 Games After Drug Retesting
Four Olympians will lose medals after the International Olympic Committee re-tested drug samples from eight years ago, finding them to be positive for banned substances.
The Olympians competed in the 2004 Athens cames, and included Ukraine’s shot put champion Yuriy Bilonog. The other Olympians to lose medals were silver-medal winning Belarussian hammer thrower Ivan Tsikhan and two bronze medalists: women’s shot putter Svetlana Krivelyova of Russia and discus thrower Irina Yatchenko of Belarus.
Tsikhan, a three-time world champion, had also lost his bronze medal from the 2008 Beijing Games before that decision was overturned because of a procedural error in a lab, Reuters reported.
There is a case against a fifth athlete which is still pending, the International Olympic Committee. That athlete has not yet been named.
All four Olympians to lose medals had tested positive for anabolic steroids. The IOC caught the failed tests when a batch of 100 samples from the Athens Games were re-tested using more modern methods.
“You always want to wait until science gives you the most sensitive tests,” IOC President Jacques Rogge told reporters. “When we retested the athletes for Athens they had undergone testing that was negative (during Athens). “Since then there has been progress, we were informed about better tests and new tests. The more time you have, the bigger the chances that science will deliver better tests.”
After the four Olympians lose medals, the total number of doping cases from Athens rises to 31, the most in Olympic history.
Tags : Four athens Olympians lose medals, four Olympians lose medals, International Olympic Committee, IOC, IOC doping, Olympic doping
Posted: December 5, 2012
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Dec 6, 2012
8yrs later? have they got time to kill, or what?
Dec 6, 2012
pretty soon, drinking milk will be doping.
Dec 6, 2012
yet they don't give back gymnast Andreea Raducan her gold medal because a doctor gave her cough medicine with a banned substance that is no longer on the list. redic
Dec 6, 2012
with all the hormones in milk these days, you're probably correct
Dec 6, 2012
Same thing I'm saying!!!
Dec 6, 2012
Really- This is ridiculous, if you couldn't test for it 8 yrs ago, it's not fair to fault them for it now…….The IOC really needs to come up with something better to do with their time…
Dec 6, 2012
I hear they are going to ban Jesse Owens because he is black.
Dec 6, 2012
I don't understand how they can retest when tested at the time of thier win, I don't think that that can legal. Who the fuck is in control of this, and why they now are able to do this? I think they need someone else to run this operation, the person in charge is SLACKING!
Dec 6, 2012
Darn! Yuriy Bilonog has been such an inspiration. Oh wait – that was someone else….
Dec 6, 2012
Why did it take 8 years to find the athletes guilty?
Dec 6, 2012
Ok, stop already, it has turned into witch hunts, if they passed when the games were going on, don't go back now and test again. Technology changes so fast and gets better and better. Once the games are over so should be the testing for that set of games. We are getting test happy. Stop already. enough is enough.
Dec 11, 2012
Really, people are shocked that shot putters and hammer throwers used performance enhancing foods and supplements? Sweet potatoes are steroidal…are they on the list? Also, people do not get that ridiculously developed naturally, and if they didn't use these enhancers, would anyone even watch these sporting events? We watch because is obscenely unusual. Be careful what you wish for.