To paraphrase the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), “only a “clean” athlete should be allowed to benefit from his or her competitive results.”
The long arm of the law has once again reached back to 2012, when the quote was first coined.
This time it is European steeplechase champion Gülcan Mıngır of Turkey and Albanian sprinter Klodiana Shala who are now provisionally suspended for testing positive after their competition during the 2012 London Olympic Games.
In 2012, positive drug tests implicated 31 Turkish athletes – due to World Athletics (formerly IAAF) out-of-competition testing in that country.
At the time, the positive tests found that athletes were using primarily two anabolic steroids, stanozolol and turinabol. Turkish Athletics Federation chairman Megmet Terzi, stepped down from his position that week as Istanbul was interested in hosting a future Olympic Games. The rash of positives squashed the notion.
Mıngır, also won the 3000-metres steeplechase at the 2012 European Championships, failed to qualify from the heats at the London 2012 Olympics.
In that race, Svtilana Schmidt of Ukraine, the original silver medallist, was banned for four years as was Russian Lyubov Kharlamova who had taken bronze at the previous edition of the championships.
Mıngır and four others faced doping charges in that particular competition with fellow Turk Binnaz Uslu and Spain’s Marta Dominguez not able to go through the heats. Dominguez was also stripped of her medal in the 2010 edition, making it successive European steeplechase races where two of the podium finishers were caught doping.
The total of doping athletes at London 2012 is now at 126 across all sports, not just athletics.
