Weightlifter Hsu Shu-ching is to receive the gold medal she was awarded in 2016 for her performance at the 2012 London Olympics sometime next year after the gold was confirmed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Hsu won a silver medal in the women’s 53kg weightlifting event, finishing behind Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan.
However, three weeks before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the International Weightlifting Federation announced that the Kazakh weightlifter had failed her drug test and that Hsu would replace her as the gold medalist.
Photo: EPA
The IOC formally confirmed Chinshanlo’s disqualification from the London games on Oct. 27, 2016, giving Hsu first place and her second Olympic gold. She also won one at the Rio games.
She is the only Taiwanese athlete to have ever won two golds at the Olympic Games.
An IOC notification sent last week to the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) confirmed Hsu’s promotion to gold in the women’s 53kg event in London, CTOC Deputy Secretary-General Wu Kuo-yu said yesterday.
It was unclear why the confirmation came a full four years after Hsu was moved up to gold in late 2016.
Hsu did fail a drug test taken before the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships, at which she won a silver. She later returned the medal, and it was never reported that the failed test put her golds from London or Rio into question.
Wu said the IOC is expected to send the gold medal to the CTOC by the end of next month, after Hsu returns her silver medal to the IOC.
Hsu would receive an additional NT$3.63 million (NT$127,547) in prize money after deducting the amount for silver medalists, the Sports Administration said.
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