After the closing of the 2012 Summer London Olympics on August 12, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced Monday that Belarus shot putter, Nadzeya Ostapchuk, was stripped of her gold medal after she tested positive of steroids. Ostapchuk was the eight athlete to be tested for drugs in the IOC drug-testing program and the first athlete to be stripped of a medal in the London Olympics.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams, told the Associated Press, "Catching cheats like this sends a message to all those who dope that we will catch them."
The gold medal now passes on to New Zealand's Valerie Adams, who actually won the silver. Now Adams can claim her second consecutive gold medal, after winning one in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Bronze medalist Evgeniia Kolodko of Russia was promoted with the silver and forth-runner up from China, Gong Lijiao now has the bronze.
Ostapchuk tested positive for steroids both before and after the game i.e. she won the gold medal for her country. The 31-year-old seemed stunned by what happened, telling reporters from a Belarus news agency naviny.by:
"I do not understand where it could come from...I'm looking like an idiot to take this in heading for the games and knowing that it is so easy to be tested. Nonsense. I'm being tested every month, every week...I hope for the better. The most important for me is to clear my reputation. I've been in the sports for so many years and have never faced any claims. And now at the major event and after the gold medal ... I do not understand it."
The athlete could face up to a two year ban from the sport.
The London drugs-testing programing GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a private sector pharmaceutical company joined hands with the IOC to conduct drug-testing to ensure all athletes were clean from any enhancing drugs. This was the first time a private sector entity was assisting in the task, CNN News called the drug-testing program for the London Olympics the most sophisticated.
