IOC announces 2nd Name of Athlete Caught in Doping Retest

The IOC has now released the 2nd name of an athlete caught in their retest of nearly 1000 samples from the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Turkish weight-lifter Sibel Özkan was stripped of her Olympic silver medal in the 48kg weight class from the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China. Out of 103 athletes caught be re-testing their samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games, only 2 names have been officially revealed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) – though Russia, for example, has leaked out the identities of several others. The other athlete named is also a weight lifter – Ukraine’s Yulia Kalina, whose name was announced 2 weeks ago. Kalina was a bronze medal winner in the 58kg weight class at the 2012 Olympic Games.

Özkan now must return her medal, pin, and diploma earned from the 2008 Games, and while results will be adjusted, the IOC did not specifically commit to reallocating the medals.

The IOC press release, including the full decision, is below:

The protection of the clean athletes and the fight against doping is a top priority for the IOC, as outlined in Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement. To provide a level playing field for all clean athletes at the Olympic Games Rio 2016, the IOC has already put special measures in place, including targeted pre-tests and the re-analysis of stored samples from the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 and London 2012 following an intelligence-gathering process that started in August 2015.

The IOC Disciplinary Commission, composed for this case of Denis Oswald (Chairman), Gunilla Lindberg and Juan Antonio Samaranch, decided the following:

• The Athlete, Sibel ÖZKAN:

• is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation pursuant to the IOC Anti-Doping Rules applicable to the Games of the XXIX Olympiad Beijing 2008 (presence and/or use, of a Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers in an athlete’s bodily specimen),
• is disqualified from the events in which she participated upon the occasion of the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, namely, the 48kg weightlifting event, and
• has the medal, the medallist pin and the diploma obtained in the 48kg weightlifting event (Final) withdrawn and is ordered to return same.

• The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) is requested to modify the results of the above-mentioned events accordingly and to consider any further action within its own competence.
• The Turkish Olympic Committee shall ensure full implementation of this decision.
• The Turkish Olympic Committee shall notably secure the return to the IOC, as soon as possible, of the medal, the medallist pin and the diploma awarded in connection with the 48kg weightlifting event (Final) to the athlete.
• This decision enters into force immediately.

The additional analyses on samples collected during the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 and London 2012 were notably performed with improved analytical methods in order to detect prohibited substances that could not be identified by the analysis performed at the time of these editions of the Olympic Games.

The full decision is available here.