14 Russians Among 31 Athletes Suspected of Doping At Beijing Olympics, Per TASS

Russian state-run news agency TASS reports that 14 Russian athletes are among the 31 Olympians who tested positive for banned substances in a retest of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

News broke earlier this month that 31 athletes over 6 different sports and 12 national Olympic committees tested positive in a retest of samples from the Beijing Olympics. The International Olympic Committee is allowed to keep frozen urine samples from previous Olympic Games for a set amount of time, retesting those samples as new testing methods evolve to detect substances that would have been undetectable at the time of the games.

The names and nationalities of the athletes have not yet been released, but Russia’s TASS reported today that 14 of the 31 are Russian athletes, per a source inside the Russian Olympic Committee.

TASS also reports four specific athletes it says are among the 31 – Olympic high jump champion Anna Chicherova and the trio of Maria Abakumov (who won silver in the javelin throw), Anastasia Kapachinskaya (who took silver as part of the 4×400 meter relay) and Denis Nizhegorodov (who took bronze in the 50km race walk).

Russia’s track & field federation is already facing a potential ban from the 2016 Rio Olympics, and IOC President Thomas Bach said earlier this month that other sporting federations could also find themselves banned if allegations about a state-sponsored doping program are proven true.

The Russian swimming federation has said it won’t respond to media requests, but will post on its website when it has more information.

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NTIN SWIMMER
8 years ago

In fact she isn’t. No swimmers. 11 are from track and field, 2 from weightlifting, 1 from rowing. 10 out of the 14 were medalists in Beijing.

beachmouse
Reply to  NTIN SWIMMER
8 years ago

From what we know, the timeline seems wrong for Russian swimmers to be impacted by the charges. Russian track & field has been dirty for a long time. The issues they’ve had with swimming only seem to have started to come up a few years after the Beijing Olympics. (My hypothesis- the drug pushers that were handling running, nordic skiing and the like were looking to expand into other sports around 10-11 in order to increase sales & profits and only then found willing partners in the Russian swimming community.)

Gina
Reply to  beachmouse
8 years ago

Possible . Seb Coe stated that athletics had a bleak future because the core followers are 55 years old & upwards. Soon other things will take their time & there are not the people to fill the gap coming up . If you are not into Track in your early years then you will not likely ever be.

So this is not the end of a bad era nor the beginning of a new age. We have reached the limits of performance & Average Joe knows this instinctively . Joe does not believe current champs are clean even from White Knight nations. Paula’s 2 .15 , Mo farad’s 800-10,000 -awh come on !

NTIN SWIMMER
8 years ago

It won’t be a surprise for me if one of them is Efimova.

TAA
8 years ago

The Russians are still in denial. Their response seems to be that they just need to do a better job at not being caught.

dmswim
8 years ago

Is there anyway y’all can use a different picture for your doping stories? A guy holding some dark urine close to his mouth is quite unappealing.

Hswimmer
Reply to  dmswim
8 years ago

I was thinking the same thing!! Gross!

Emg1986
Reply to  Hswimmer
8 years ago

“Yes… it’s definitely urine” pretty much summarises WADA

Marley09
Reply to  dmswim
8 years ago

“I conclude this is definitely urine” Test result negative.

Emg1986
8 years ago

Well, congratulations to Blanka Vlasic, Olympic Womens High Jump Champion 2008. Although 8 years late.

Kevin
Reply to  Emg1986
8 years ago

Vlasic got 2nd at 2008 ahead of Chicherova who got 3rd. Chicherova did not win until 2012, so congrats is due to Brigetta Barrett of the USA!

Rafael
Reply to  Kevin
8 years ago

At 2008 the winner was Hellebaut (Belgium)
Chicherova was 3rd.. but then we have some who may also be tainted, Yelena (Russian 4th), Palamar (Ukraine 5th) then Chaunte (USA)

And I don´t know if a 2008 doping will have impact on 2012 results (Anyone knows?)
Also, bleak for 2012, 3rd place was Russian Svetlana, if she was doped too, Gold for Barret, Silver for Beitia (Spain) and Bronze for Hellebaut

beachmouse
Reply to  Emg1986
8 years ago

Would love to see Blanka get the reallocated gold- she’s just brought so much happiness and personality to the discipline over the years.

This doesn’t exactly help the Russian case for getting the track & field ban lifted, eh?

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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