In the latest move, the International Olympic Committee disqualified Russian bronze-medalist weightlifter Nadezda Evstyukhina, silver-medalist weightlifter Marina Shainova, and Tatyana Firova, who finished second with teammates in the 4x400m track event.
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The 4x400m team had already been stripped of their medals following re-analysis of Anastasiya Kapachinskaya’s Beijing samples earlier this month.
The bronze medal in the men’s 69kg weightlifting class was stripped from Armenia’s Tigram Martirosyan, who tested positive for stanozolol and turinabol.
Turinabol and erythropoietin were found in the sample given by Evstyukhina, a a three-time world champion. She also had her ninth-place finish in the individual 400 meters annulled.
North Korea’s O Jong-ae, who finished behind Shainova at the 2008 Olympics, is set to be upgraded to silver, with Thailand’s Wandee Kameaim moving into bronze medal position. Chinese gold medalists Cao Lei, Liu Chunhong and Chen Xiexia all tested positive for GHRP-2, which stimulates growth hormone production, while Liu also tested positive for the stimulant sibutramine.
The IOC stores athletes’ samples for a decade to test with newer methods or for new substances, and has in the past stripped medal winners of their prizes. Dudoglo tested positive for stanozolol, Zairov for turinabol.
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Around 100 athletes have failed retested Olympic doping samples from Beijing and London, including many Russians as the IOC grapples with numerous drug scandals that rocked the build-up to the Rio Games.
