Another batch of positive retests from 2008 Olympic doping samples could lead to a pair of Americans being upgraded to bronze medals from the Beijing Games.
Those Americans are high jumper Chaunté Lowe and pole vaulter Derek Miles.
In the women’s high jump, doping samples from the original third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishers all came back positive for the banned steroid turinabol.
The third-place finisher was 2012 Olympic champion Anna Chicherova. The fourth-place finisher was 2004 Olympic champion Yelena Slesarenko. Both are from Russia, and both remain Olympic champions.
Lowe finished sixth originally in Beijing.
The International Olympic Committee disqualified the Beijing results of Chicherova, Slesarenko and fifth-place Vita Palamar of Ukraine. It requested track and field’s international governing body, the IAAF, to modify results and take any further action.
In the pole vault, Ukraine’s Denis Yurchenko was stripped of his bronze medal. Miles finished fourth and would be in line to earn the bronze should the medal be reallocated.
“I’d heard they were going back and testing samples of Ukrainian and Russian athletes from eight years ago,” Miles said, according to the (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Argus Leader. “There was another Ukrainian who’d tested positive recently and he’d been a training partner with Yurchenko.
“The more I think about it, the cool thing about this is what it would mean for the people close to me. A lot of people went through a lot -- my wife, my parents, [coach] Lucky Huber, my agents and a bunch of others -- with me throughout my career. That will be the fun part now. Maybe we’ll have a little mini-celebration at home.”
In all, the IOC stripped 10 athletes of 2008 Olympic medals across track and field, weightlifting and wrestling on Thursday.
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So I guess I am an #Olympic Medalist now. The 3 people that finished immediately in front of me in 2008 tested positive giving in me bronze!
— chaunte (@chauntelowe) November 17, 2016