Women’s 1,500 meter Olympic champion Asli Cakir Alptekin of Turkey has been stripped of her London 2012 gold medal for blood doping.
Advertisement
Cakir-Alptekin, who had previously been cleared by the Turkish Athletic Federation (TAF), will now relinquish the 1500-metre gold medals she won at the Olympic Games and European Championships in 2012.
CAS said the charge that Alptekin manipulated her blood was “upheld by default”. On Sunday, ARD reported that the worldwide Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had recently demanded explanations from Russian sporting authorities regarding athletes suspected of doping, including Olympic gold medallist Mariya Savinova.
Ms Cakir-Alptekin is found to have committed a second anti-doping rule violation, after a first one committed in 2004, and shall serve a period of ineligibility of eight years, to expire at midnight on 9 January 2021.
A settlement by the Turkish runner and the IAAF was announced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday, days before the world championships open in Beijing.
The eight-year-ban is the maximum allowed by the IAAF for a second doping offence of that type, the CAS ruling said. IAAF then appealed to CAS but, before the case could be heard, the parties reached agreement.
Russian Tatyana Tomashova, who initially missed out on a podium finish after coming fourth, could be retrospectively given bronze.
At the same time, the gold medal that German rower Horst Hoeck won at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, which had gone missing for decades, has been found near Berlin.
She has not raced competitively since being provisionally suspended by IAAF in January 2013.
Advertisement
Alptekin also forfeits her appearance money and prize money earned since July 2010. She had argued her blood readings were caused by living and training at altitude, as well as by medical issues, but experts dismissed her claims.
