IOC Sanctions One Athlete for Failing Anti-Doping Test at Beijing 2008

The protection of clean athletes and the fight against doping are top priorities for the International Olympic Committee (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 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.

As part of this process, the IOC today announced that one athlete has been disqualified from the Olympic Games Beijing 2008. The details follow.

Viktoriya TERESHCHUK, 35, of Ukraine, competing in the women’s individual modern pentathlon event (running, riding, swimming, fencing, shooting) in which she ranked 3rd and for which she was awarded a bronze medal, has been disqualified from the Olympic Games Beijing 2008. Re-analysis of Tereshchuk’s samples from Beijing 2008 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance dehydrochloromethyltestosterone (turinabol).

The IOC Disciplinary Commission, composed for this case of Mr Denis Oswald (Chairman), Mrs Gunilla Lindberg and Dr Ugur Erdener, decided the following:

I. The Athlete, Viktoriya TERESHCHUK:

i. 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 in Beijing in 2008 (presence and/or use, of a Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers in an athlete’s bodily specimen),

ii. is disqualified from the events in which she participated upon the occasion of the Olympic Games Beijing 2008, namely, the women’s individual modern pentathlon event in which she ranked 3rd and for which she was awarded a bronze medal, and

iii. has the bronze medal, the diploma and the medallist pin obtained in the women’s individual modern pentathlon event withdrawn and is ordered to return same.

II. The UIPM is requested to modify the results of the above-mentioned event accordingly and to consider any further action within its own competence.

III. The National Olympic Committee of Ukraine shall ensure full implementation of this decision.

IV. The National Olympic Committee of Ukraine shall notably secure the return to the IOC, as soon as possible, of the bronze medal, the diploma and the medallist pin awarded in connection with the women’s individual modern pentathlon even to the Athlete.

V. This decision enters into force immediately.

The full decision is available here.

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

For further details, please consult the following factsheet.

For more information, please contact:

IOC Media Relations Team:

Tel: +41 21 621 6000

Email: pressoffice@olympic.org

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