IOC strips 10 athletes of medals for doping

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND • The International Olympic Committee on Thursday stripped 10 athletes of medals from the 2008 Olympics after banned substances were found during retests of samples from the games.

The IOC says the 10, nine of whom hail from former Soviet nations, each tested positive for various steroids.

No gold medallists were among the 10, though three silver medallists were from weightlifting and wrestling.

Canadian weightlifter Christine Girard could move up to the bronze position because silver-medallist Irina Nekrasova of Kazakhstan is one of the athletes being stripped of a medal.

Track and field was also hit, with Greek triple jumper Chrysopigi Devetzi and Ukrainian pole vaulter Denys Yurchenko losing their bronze medals. Yurchenko’s ban could elevate Derek Miles of the United States to the bronze medal position.

Six athletes who did not win medals in 2008 were also disqualified. There could be another U.S. medal for high jumper Chaunte Lowe, now in line to inherit bronze.

Among those disqualified Thursday were the athletes who finished in the two places immediately above Lowe, Russia’s Elena Slesarenko and Ukraine’s Vita Palamar. The bronze medal position was vacated last month when the IOC said Russian Anna Chicherova tested positive for turinabol.

The three silver medallists affected are Azerbaijani wrestler Vitaliy Rahimov, Russian wrestler Khasan Baroev and Nekrasova. Weightlifting has been by far the worst-hit sport in retests so far and saw nine more athletes sanctioned Thursday, taking the sport’s total for the 2008 Olympics alone to 22.