Five weightlifters, including two Olympic champions, have been provisionally suspended after retests of their samples from the 2012 London Olympics came back positive for doping, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said.
Ukraine’s Oleksiy Torokhtiy could now be stripped of the Olympic title he won in the 105-kg category in London while Azerbaijan’s Bulgaria-born Valentin Hristov could lose his bronze medal from the 56-kg category.
“The International Olympic Committee is responsible to decide about any consequences relating to the athletes’ participation in the 2012 London Olympic Games,” the IWF said.
“In all cases where it is determined that an Anti-Doping Rule Violation was committed, the responsibility to conduct results management will be transferred to the IWF in terms of consequences extending beyond the athletes’ Olympic Games participation.”
Uzbekistan’s Ruslan Nurudinov, who came fourth in the 105kg in London, Armenia’s Melanie Daluzyan and Belarus’s Mikalai Novikau were also suspended after the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) re-analysis discovered adverse analytical findings, the IWF said in a statement.
Nurudinov won the Olympic title in Rio in 2016 as well as the world title in Poland in 2013 and the gold medal at the Asian Games in Jakarta this year.
