2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Swimming: August 6-13
- Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro
- Prelims – 9:00 a.m/12:00 p.m PST/EST (1:00 p.m local), Finals – 6:00 p.m/9:00 p.m PST/EST (10:00 p.m local)
- SwimSwam previews
- Rio Schedule & Results
- Live Stream (NBC)
Greek swimmer Theodora Giareni has been withdrawn from the preliminary heats of the women’s 50 free on Friday morning after a the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) in Greece announced on the eve of the opening ceremonies that she had undergone a positive doping control test.
While the HOC did not announce her name, sources later confirmed her identity, which was further enhanced by a note on today’s 50 free start lists:
Theodora Gianeni (sic) (GRE) withdrawn from the Olympic Games
Giareni is reported to have requested an analysis of her “B” sample after she was expelled from the Olympic Village and sequestered to a hotel awaiting a final decision. No formal announcement of the result of that “B” sample analysis has been made public, though she was only removed from the 50 free start lists late Thursday evening – at 8:57 PM local time.
She was scheduled to swim in lane 2 of heat 8, which will now race with an empty lane instead of re-seeding all of the preceding heats.
No new information, either from official or unofficial sources, has come out about what Giareni might have tested positive for. This is her second adverse analytical finding in the last year – she was given a “no fault” finding after a positive test on December 5th, 2015.
Chinese swimmer Chen Xinyi, who also has a recent positive doping test, is still on the start lists 2 hours before the beginning of the morning session.
