IOC Strips 10 athletes of their Olympic Medals

The International Olympic Committee stripped ten athletes of their medals from 2008 Olympics. The move came after these athletes were tested positive for various banned steroids during the retest of their samples from the games.

Key Details

• Among the ten athletes, nine belong to former Soviet Union countries.
• None of them were gold medalists.
• Three were silver medalists: Wrestlers Vitaly Rahimov and Khasan Baroev from Azerbaijan and Russia respectively and weightlifter Irina Nekrasova from Kazakhstan.
• Two were bronze medalists: Triple jumper Chrysopigi Devetzi from Greece and pole vaulter Denys Yurchenko from Ukraine.
• These results take the total of weightlifting medalists tested positive for banned substances in 2008 Olympics to 22.
• Apart from them, six athletes who did not win any medal during the 2008 games were also disqualified.
• One among the disqualified six is Russia’s Elena Slesarenko-women’s high jump gold medalist in 2004- who came fourth in 2008 games and Ukraine’s Vita Palamar, who came fifth.

Medal Hope for Others

• With Denys Yurchenko’s ban, American athlete Derek Miles stands a chance to take the bronze medal position in men's pole vault at 2008 games.
• The bronze medal position in women’s high jump was already vacant after Russia’s Anna Chicherova was tested positive for steroid turinabol in October 2016. Now with disqualification of Slesarenko and Palamar who were standing at 4th and 5th positions respectively, the bronze will go to Chaunte Lowe from the United States who originally came sixth.
• With the ouster of Ukraine’s Olha Korobka and Kazakhstan’s Mariya Grabovetskaya from silver and bronze positions in women’s weightlifting (75kg ) category, Mariam Usman would become the only second Nigerian to win an Olympic medal in weightlifting.
• Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard also stands to gain from these bans, as she would move to bronze position with silver medalist Irina Nekrasova’s disqualification and the current bronze medal holder  Lu Ying-chi from Taiwan will move up to the silver medal position.