IOC gives medal upgrades to 2 former banned athletes

2012 Women’s 1,500m, photo by Photorun.net

MOSCOW (RUS): AP informs that the IOC says it will give medal upgrades to two Russian athletes Ekatrina Poistogova and Tatyana Tomashova who have served doping bans. The IOC will award silver medals to Poistogova and Tomashova after other athletes were banned. In the past, the IOC has blocked upgrades in similar cases. Poistogova was banned for two years in 2017 after a WADA investigation found she admitted to using banned substances in undercover footage and discussed techniques to “thwart drug detection.” Tomashova was barred from the 2008 Olympics and banned when a doping sample she submitted was found to contain someone else’s urine. Both raced at the 2012 Olympics, with Poistogova originally finishing fourth in the 800m. Tomashova was fourth in the 1500m. Two Turkish runners who finished ahead of Tomashova were later disqualified for doping, while Poistogova moved up because her Russian training partner Maria Savinova was banned.

runblogrun opines: What was the IOC thinking? What message does this give? Neither of these athletes have lived an Olympic ideal and this is in the final that may be, on the women’s side, the dirtiest Olympic race in decades? It seems that IOC President Bach can give lip service to anti-doping, but in a situation like this, where he has a chance to prove with actions his sentiments, nothing seems to have been done.