MONACO (AP) -- Turkish runners Elvan Abeylegesse and Gamze Bulut were banned for doping Wednesday and stand to lose their Olympic silver medals.
Abeylegesse tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol in a retest of a sample she gave at the 2007 World Championships. She was banned for two years by the IAAF and had her results wiped out from 2007-09.
Abeylegesse won Olympic silver medals in the 5000m and 10,000m at the 2008 Beijing Games and silver in the 10,000m at the 2007 World Championships.
American Shalane Flanagan stands to get the silver medal in the 10,000m, with third for Linet Chepkwemoi Masai of Kenya. In the 5000m, Meseret Defar of Ethiopia would get silver and Sylvia Kibet of Kenya would get bronze.
American Kara Goucher stands to upgrade from bronze to silver in the 2007 Worlds 10,000m.
The IAAF also said it had imposed a four-year ban on Bulut for a violation of its biological passport program.
Bulut’s results from July 2011 have been wiped out, which will cost her the silver medal in the 1500m at the 2012 London Olympics. In that race, Bulut finished behind Turkish runner Asli Cakir Alptekin, who has also since been banned.
Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain stands to inherit gold, with silver for Tatyana Tomashova of Russia, who has previously served a ban for giving someone else’s urine in a doping test. Bronze would go to Abeba Aregawi, who represented Ethiopia in 2012 but now races for Sweden.
Bulut has also been disqualified from the 2012 European Championships, when she originally finished second behind Alptekin in the 1500m. Spanish runner Nuria Fernandez, originally fifth, is now the highest-placed athlete who has not been disqualified from that race for doping violations.
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