MADRID: Spanish weightlifter Lidia Valentin hopes to be awarded an Olympic gold medal from London 2012 after the athletes that finished above her all failed drug tests when their samples were reanalysed.

Valentin, who will compete at next month’s Games in Rio, finished fourth in 2012 in the Women’s -75kg category.

All three athletes that made the podium ahead of Valentin -- champion Svetlana Podobedova, silver medallist Nataliya Zabolotnaya and Iryna Kulesha who won bronze -- tested positive for banned substances when their samples were reanalysed.

“Although late, as it has taken four years, finally justice has been done,” Valentin told Spanish newspaper AS. “The important thing is that is has come out. It’s not a surprise.”

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) announced on Wednesday that Russia’s Zabolotnaya and Kulesha of Belarus had produced positive samples in a second wave of International Olympic Committee (IOC) retests.

The IWF said last month that the sample of Kazakhstan’s Podobedova had produced an adverse finding in the first wave of retests.

“I wasn’t able to enjoy the podium at the time but the important thing is that the cheats have been caught,” the 31-year-old Valentin said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2016

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