More stars stripped of Olympic medals

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) continues its campaign to crack down on past doping by stripping three more Olympic medals from 2008 and 2012 after retesting using modern technology.

Taymazov is the latest athlete to be stripped of his 2008 Olympic gold medal. Photo: Reuters

According to Reuters, in this announcement, the IOC decided to strip the 2008 Olympic gold medal from wrestling star Artur Taymazov because his retest sample tested positive for the banned substances turinabol and stanozolol. At the Olympics held in Beijing (China), the 38-year-old wrestler from Uzbekistan won the gold medal in the men's 120 kg weight class.

The decision to award Taymazov a medal in advance has come as a shock to both Uzbekistan and Russia, as the athlete won a hat-trick of gold medals in three consecutive Olympics in 2004, 2008 and 2012. Moreover, the athlete with dual Russian-Uzbek citizenship was elected as a member of the United Russia political party last year. According to Reuters, with Taymazov being punished, Russian wrestler Bakhtiyar Akhmedov (who won silver) may be upgraded to gold at the 2008 Olympics.

During this period, the IOC also forced male wrestler Vasyl Fedoryshyn (Ukraine) in the 55-60 kg weight class and female weightlifter Svetlana Tsarukayeva (Russia) in the 63 kg weight class to return the silver medals they won at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, respectively. Like Taymazov, the stored test samples of Fedoryshyn and Tsarukayeva both tested positive during the IOC's re-testing using modern technology.

This is the IOC's latest move in its crackdown on past doping fraud and is also a warning to athletes who plot to "circumvent the law" by using doping in competition to achieve high results in international sports arenas.

The IOC has kept doping test samples from athletes for 10 years, and more than 1,000 samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics have been retested using improved analytical methods. Most recently, last weekend, the IOC voided the 2012 Olympic results for four Russian athletes in the hammer throw, triple jump and weightlifting.

According to TNO