Russia's Irina Korzhanenko was stripped of her shot-put gold medal yesterday, the first athlete of the Athens Games to lose an Olympic title because of doping.
Korzhanenko tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after Wednesday's competition, where she became the first woman to win a gold medal at the sacred site of Ancient Olympia. The backup B sample confirmed the initial finding that the drug was stanozolol, the anabolic steroid used by Canadian Ben Johnson when he won the 1988 Seoul 100 meters final in record time. He was stripped of the medal.
The International Olympic Committee executive board expelled Korzhanenko from the games and ordered the Russian Olympic Committee to return the medal.
The gold goes to Cuba's Yumileidi Cumba Jay. Germany's Nadine Kleinert would move up to silver, and Russia's Svetlana Krivelyova to bronze.
Korzhanenko, who served a previous two-year drug suspension, faces a lifetime ban from the sport.
In 1999, she was stripped of the silver medal at the world indoor championships for a doping violation and was given a two-year suspension that kept her out of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Under international rules, two steroid violations warrants a lifetime ban.
The IOC decision came a day after Greek weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis became the first athlete of the Athens Games to be strip-ped of a medal for a doping offense. Sampanis lost his bronze medal in the 62kg category after testing positive for testosterone.
Another female shot putter, Uzbekistan's Olga Shchukina, tested positive in a pre-Athens screening for the steroid clenbuterol. She finished 19th and last in her qualifying group and was expelled from the games on Friday.
So far, nine weightlifters have failed drug tests, including another Russian, Albina Khomich. A Kenyan boxer was also sent home after a positive test. With a week left in the games, including track and field events, more positives are widely expected.
"The testing is more extensive and more comprehensive, so you'd expect we would catch more athletes that are cheating," Dick Pound, the World Anti-Doping Agency chief, said on Sunday. "It increases the confidence in the authenticity of the competition if we are taking people out who cheated"
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