The 2012 Olympic men’s weightlifting 94kg results could be headed for massive disqualifications.
Six of the top seven finishers’ recent retests of their doping samples from those Olympics came up positive for the same substance (and more substances for three of the lifters):
Gold: Ilya Ilyin (Kazakhstan, anabolic steroids, announced June 15)
Silver: Aleksandr Ivanov (Russia, anabolic steroid and hormone modulator, July 27)
Bronze: Anatoli Cîrîcu (Moldova, anabolic steroid, Sept. 13)
4. Andrey Demanov (Russia, anabolic steroid, July 27)
6. Intigam Zairov (Azerbaijan, anabolic steroid, July 27)
7. Almas Uteshov (Kazakhstan, anabolic steroids, July 27)
None of the athletes’ results have been stripped yet, as the International Weightlifting Federation awaits the next step from the International Olympic Committee. All of the athletes are under provisional suspensions.
The fifth-place finisher, Saeid Mohammadpour of Iran, could be upgraded to gold if the top four are stripped of their results.
The eighth-place finisher, Kim Min-jae of South Korea, could earn silver. The ninth-place finisher, Tomasz Zielinski of Poland, could get bronze. Zielinski was just thrown out of the Rio Olympics after testing positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone.
MORE: Four more Beijing 2008 medalists stripped after doping retests