athletics
More than ten years after the competition, track and field athlete Lashinda Demus has been declared an Olympic champion. The now 40-year-old American won the silver medal in the 400m hurdles at the 2012 Summer Games in London, but the original winner, Natalya Antyuk, was disqualified for her involvement in the Russian doping scandal and Demus has now been reinstated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC ) officially awarded the gold medal.
In the final on August 8, 2012 in London’s Olympic Stadium, Demus was beaten by seven hundredths as the then reigning world champion Antjuch, who won in 52.70 seconds. The then third-placed Czech Zuzana Hejnova now receives silver, her bronze medal goes to Jamaican Kaliese Spencer according to the IOC.
Antjuch was sentenced to a four-year ban for a second doping affair in 2021 by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the independent integrity committee of the world athletics association World Athletics (WA). This was also confirmed by the International Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in Lausanne.
McLaren report with far-reaching consequences
It was based on evidence from the McLaren Report, an investigative report published on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and named after chief investigator Richard McLaren into a system of nationwide and state-sponsored doping in Russia in the period from 2011 to 2016 In October 2022, the AIU then canceled all of Antjuch’s results between July 15, 2012 and December 31, 2015 – and her Olympic victory in London was retrospectively revoked.
The suspension of the Russian Athletics Association (RUSAF) imposed as a result of the McLaren report was only lifted by the WA Council a week ago after more than seven years. Since the sanctions imposed in November 2015, only a few Russian athletes have been allowed to start as neutral athletes after being tested. RUSAF was given numerous requirements that must be met over the next three years.
However, the lifting of the ban does not mean that Russians will be allowed to start for the time being, as the WA Council decided at the same time to extend the ban on athletes from Russia and Belarus because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine.
