Pavey earns global medal – 10 years late
Jo Pavey was last night on the brink of receiving the first global medal of her career – 10 years late – after a drugs cheat was disqualified from the 2007 World Championships in Osaka.
The 43-year-old was due to be promoted from what was an agonising fourth place in the 10,000 metres following the announcement by the International Association of Athletics Federation that Turkish silver medallist Elvan Abeylegesse had doped.
Abeylegesse, who was caught following a 2015 retest of a sample she provided eight years earlier, will also lose her silver medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Pavey, dubbed ‘Supermum’ after winning European gold and Commonwealth bronze in 2014, said yesterday: “I’ll be thrilled to receive the medal that’s rightfully mine, but it’s also bittersweet. I was in the best shape of my life that day, it was incredibly hot and humid, I gave it my all and it was so close for a medal. I was in medal position just before the line. I just felt massive frustration I couldn’t quite do it.
“It was a feeling of failure, lying on the track flat on my back, feeling massively disappointed.
“You feel like you’ve let everyone down when [you] could have been standing on the podium feeling massively proud, it should have been a day of massive elation. It’s frustrating how much drugs cheats take from you. But it’s good things are finally being done about it.
“It’s been a decade of waiting but now to have it in black and white from the IAAF that her results will be annulled and I’ll receive my medal finally means a lot.
“I would have preferred to have been on the podium in Osaka but it is good to have a resolution.”
Pavey is hoping to receive her world bronze at London 2017, where she is aiming to compete in the marathon.
Jessica Ennis-Hill could also be given her 2011 world gold at the same event following Tatyana Chernova’s disqualification for doping.
Pavey said: “It would be lovely to receive my medal at a home World Championships. That would be really special, particularly alongside people like Jessica Ennis-Hill.”