The International Olympic Committee has disqualified two more athletes from London 2012 after they tested positive in the re-analysis of stored anti-doping samples.
The Russian weightlifter Apti Aukhadov and Ukrainian pole vaulter Maksym Mazuryk both tested positive for the anabolic steroid turinabol.
Aukhadov, the 2013 European and world champion in the 85kg category, loses the silver medal he won in London, while Mazuryk, a former world junior champion and 2010 European silver medallist, finished 18th in 2012. The 23-year-old Aukhadov now faces a four-year ban and the loss of all of his results between 2012 and 2016.
The IOC has been gradually working its way through a backlog of cases thrown up by the more than 1,200 samples it re-tested from Beijing 2008 and London 2012 in the build-up to the Rio Olympics.
Those re-tests caught 98 athletes from the two Games, taking the total number of those disqualified from London, which had once been considered a “clean” Games, to more than 50.
Last year, however, a World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned report accused Russian athletes of effectively “sabotaging” London 2012 with their rampant cheating.
An IOC statement to announce the two new positives said: “The protection of clean athletes and the fight against doping are top priorities for the International Olympic Committee. To provide a level playing field for all clean athletes at Rio 2016, the IOC put special measures in place, including targeted pre-tests and the re-analysis of stored samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012, following an intelligence-gathering process that started in August 2015.”
