MOSCOW: Russian race walker Yelena Lashmanova has been banned for two years for the use of prohibited substances and will be stripped of her 2012 Olympics gold medal in the 20-km race, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Monday.
Lashmanova won gold in London when she beat compatriot Olga Kaniskina, who was also later stripped of her silver medal for doping. Lashmanova then won gold at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow, another medal she will now lose.
The AIU said the charges were based on Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) data as well as evidence provided by Richard McLaren, who led the investigations into state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes.
“Russian race walker Yelena Lashmanova has been banned for two years, starting 9 March 2021, for the use of prohibited substances, a violation of World Athletics anti-doping rules,” the AIU said in a statement.
“Lashmanova has accepted the sanction proposed by the AIU... She is set to lose gold medals from the women’s 20-km race walk event at the London 2012 Olympic Games and 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.”
The AIU said her results between Feb 18, 2012 and Jan 3, 2014 had been disqualified.
Lashmanova was previously handed a two-year doping ban in 2014. She had been coached by Viktor Chegin, who was banned for life from athletics in 2016 over the Russian doping scandal.
Russia’s athletics federation was suspended by World Athletics in 2015 following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report containing allegations of state-supported doping, which Moscow denied.
Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2022
