10 Weightlifters Set for Rio Olympic Ban for Doping

(ATR) Four London Olympic weightlifting champions from Kazakhstan are among 10 lifters expected to be banned from Rio 2016 after retests revealed doping at the 2012 Games.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) announced the news late Wednesday. In total seven London Olympic medalists have been exposed as doping cheats. All have been provisionally suspended and are set to be stripped of their medals.

Ilya Ilyin, the sport’s biggest name who won gold in the men’s 94kg in London and at the Beijing Games, tested positive for the anabolic steroids Dehydrochloromethyltestosterone and Stanozololafter reanalysis of London 2012 samples. The four-time world champion was named IWF World Weightlifter of the Year in 2014 and 2015.

Three Kazakh female 2012 gold medalists, Zulfiya Chinshanlo, Maiya Maneza and Svetlana Podobedova have also been caught taking performance-enhancing drugs at the Games.

Three Russian lifters who won silver behind the Kazakh athletes at the London Games in the men’s 94kg and women’s 63kg and 75kg weight categories can expect to be awarded gold medals retroactively if they pass mandatory retests themselves.

The other lifters who took the podium at the London Games but are now set to be disqualified areRussia’s Apti Aukhadov, a men’s 85kg silver medallist, along with Yuliya Kalina and Maryna Shkermankova, female bronze medalists from Ukraine and Belarus,

Three other lifters from Belarus and another from Azerbaijan also failed drugs tests in the retest of London samples.

"In line with the relevant rules and regulations, the IWF imposed mandatory provisional suspensions upon the athletes, who remain provisionally suspended in view of potential anti-doping rule violations until their cases are closed," the IWF said.

"Following the IOC’s decisions, the IWF will be in a position to take over the results management of these cases."

The IOC announced last month that 23 athletes from six countries in five sports had tested positive for banned drugs following retesting of London 2012 samples. Reanalysis of 265 selected doping samples from the 2012 Games was based on intelligence-gathering that began last August. The retests targeted those athletes seeking to compete at the Rio Olympics.

The London 2012 positives followed news that 31 athletes had failed drug tests after reanalysis of 454 samples from the Beijing 2008 Games.

Further doping positives are likely to emerge from ongoing retesting of the 2008 and 2012 urine and blood samples.

The International Weightlifting Federation said in its statement that it would report the current standing of the Beijing reanalytical cases "as soon as possible".

Reported by Mark Bisson

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