Britain in line to gain from cheats’ shame
BRITISH athletes are likely to be beneficiaries of the comprehensive rewriting of Olympic and track record books in the next few months as more Russian cheats are identified.
Professor Richard McLaren’s report reckons more than 1,000 Russian athletes can be identified as benefiting from systematic doping since 2011.
And British canoeists Liam Heath and Jon Schofield could be among the first to be upgraded. Heath, who won Olympic gold in the K1 200m class this year in Rio, was a bronze medallist in the K2 class with partner Schofield at London 2012.
They were beaten to gold by Russians Yury Postrigay and Alex Dyachenko but McLaren has now told the International Olympic Committee to retest their samples. Neither Postrigay nor Dyachenko have failed drugs tests.
Other beneficiaries could be Beth Tweddle, who won bronze in the uneven bars behind Russian gold medallist Aliya Mustafina, and Elizabeth Simmonds who came fourth in the 200m backstroke with Russia’s Anastasia Zuyeva second.
McLaren’s report states that there should be ‘priority retesting of samples from the sports of weightlifting, rowing and canoe’ and that ‘beyond these priority retesting requests … (it is) recommended that the IOC retest all of the Russian samples from London since (there is) evidence that Russian doping and cover-up involved almost all of the Olympic sports’.
The 2013 world athletics championships held in Moscow are also under scrutiny with McLaren having requested that the International Association of Athletics Federations retest 33 Russian samples after the championships was used as a dry run for the systematic manipulation of the 2014 Winter Olympics, with samples being switched and tampered with.
Britain’s women’s team of Christine Ohuruogu, Margaret Adeoye, Shana Cox and Eilidh Child seem likely to be upgraded to the silver medal in the 4x400m, in which they finished third, behind winners Russia. The Russian team had Tatyana Firova whose sample from the 2008 Olympics has recently been retested and found to be positive for steroids. Also in the Russian team was Kseniya Ryzhova, who tested positive for a stimulant in 2014.
Britain’s men’s team of Conrad Williams, Martyn Rooney, Michael Bingham and Nigel Levine came fourth in the 4x400m behind Russia.