Apologies as Aussies get Rio rooms
Eleven weightlifters, including six medallists, have produced positive samples in the second wave of doping retests from the 2012 London Olympics, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) says.
Russia’s five-times European champion Nataliya Zabolotnaya was among three silver medallists from the London Games to fail tests along with compatriots Alexandr Ivanov and Svetlana Tzarukaeva.
Zabolotnaya finished second in the women’s -75kg event in London, repeating her silvermedal performance in Athens eight years earlier.
Ivanov was world champion in 2010 and 2013 in the -94kg category, while Tzarukaeva won the world title in 2011 in the 63kg event.
Other London medallists revealed yesterday to have failed tests included Iryna Kulesha of Belarus, Armenia’s Hripsime Khurshudyan and Moldova’s Cristina Iovu.
The IWF said the 11 athletes have all been provisionally suspended.
All the athletes who tested positive were found to have used the banned anabolic steroid Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said last week that 45 athletes had failed dope tests after their samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and London 2012 were reanalysed.
The second wave of retests included 138 samples from London 2012, involving athletes from two sports and nine countries. The London 2012 retests produced 15 failures. A near-diplomatic incident – as Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes termed it – has come to an end ahead of the Olympics.
The Australian delegation gave the mayor a tiny ‘‘boxing kangaroo’' doll yesterday as the sign of a truce. It also said it’s now happy with its rooms at Rio’s Olympic Athletes Village.
The 700-member delegation refused to check in three days earlier because of water and gas leaks, electrical shorts, malfunctioning toilets and general filth.
The unfinished village marks the first organisational crisis of South America’s first Olympics, which open in just over a week. Attention now shifts to dozens of venues, which will be filling up in the next few days with thousands of athletes hoping to practice. Problems here could make village problems seems small.
‘‘It was almost a diplomatic thing,’' the mayor said, speaking to Australian officials and members of the men’s field hockey team at the 31-building village.
Paes apologised acknowledged Australia’s and ‘‘was the worst building.’'
‘‘Australia was right,’' he said. ‘‘It was not in good shape. That was a mistake of the organisation. What we have to do now is go ahead and organise it. They’ve got their building now, and I hope things go well from now on.’'
As his offering, Paes gave delegation head Kitty Chiller the keys to the city, and a doll representing the official mascot Vinicius.
Australian officials said about 50 athletes were living in the village on Wednesday accompanied by almost 100 additional staff members.
Rio organisers said 2902 people occupied the village on Wednesday – 849 of them athletes.
The village will accommodate 18,000 athletes and staff at its peak. The crunch should come next week in the run-up to the opening ceremony on August 5.