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The London 2012 race regarded as one of the dirtiest in history has expunged yet another name from the record books after Tatyana Tomashova was stripped of her women’s Olympic 1500m silver medal. The Russian becomes the fifth out of 12 finishers in the final to be disqualified for retrospective doping offences.
The race was questioned almost immediately with Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey telling the BBC straight after the race: “I’ll probably get into trouble for saying this, but I don’t believe I’m competing on a level playing field.” History, though, has slowly proven Dobriskey correct.
Tomashova is the latest athlete to be punished after analysis of her data held in the Moscow anti-doping laboratory showed she had been taking banned drugs. The Russian had finished fourth but was moved up after the first two in the race, Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin and Gamze Bulut, were banned for blood doping and had their results annulled in 2015 and 2017 respectively. Belarus’s Natallia Kareiva, who came seventh, and Russia’s Yekaterina Kostetskaya, who was ninth, were also banned for doping offences.
The loss of Tomashova’s medal was confirmed by the Athletics Integrity Unit, who said she had decided not to appeal against a 10-year ban imposed on her by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in September.
“Tomashova’s sanction stemmed from AIU charges based on historical data, showing evidence of doping in Russian athletics, from the Laboratory Information Management System at the former Moscow Laboratory,” CAS said. “The International Olympic Committee may now proceed with the reallocation of medals and the update of the IOC database.”
The Ethiopian-born Swedish athlete Abeba Aregawi, who was fifth in London, moves up to silver while the American Shannon Rowbury takes a belated bronze medal. Dobriskey and her fellow Briton Laura Weightman have been moved up to fifth and sixth respectively.
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In 2016, Dobriskey, who won a world championship silver medal in 2009, remembered the hurt she felt after the race. “I wanted to cry and I needed to get out of the stadium,” she said. “It should have been a joyous moment in front of my home crowd but I felt humiliated. I just wanted the ground to swallow me up. I felt I had to apologise for my performance to my family and friends. I felt I’d let people down.”
