NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 10 – Kenya’s Pamela Jelimo and Janeth Jepkosgei will benefit with medals from the Olympics and World Championships respectively after Russian Mariya Savinova was found guilty of doping and stripped all her 800m medals between 2010 and 2013.
This is according to a decision released by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which has slapped the athlete with a four year ban, backdated to 2015.
Jelimo the 2008 Beijing champion, finished fourth at the London 2012 Olympics and is now set to benefit with an elevation to the bronze medal position.
Savinova beat South Africa’s Caster Semenya into second at the London Olympics with Jelimo who won the title in 2008 finishing fourth in 1:57.59.
Semenya will now benefit with the gold medal while another Russian Ekaterina Poistogova who finished third will be elevated to silver.
Savinova will also lose her 800m gold from the 2011 World Championships, meaning Semenya who finished behind her will now get the gold while Jepkosgei famously referred as Eldoret Express who was third earning the silver medal.
The Russian will also be stripped of her European Championship title from 2010 as well as a World Championship silver from 2013.
A CAS statement read: “On the basis of clear evidence, including the evidence derived from her biological passport (ABP), Mariya Savinova is found to have been engaged in using doping from 26 July 2010 (the eve of the European Championship in Barcelona) through to 19 August 2013 (the day after the World Championship in Moscow).
“As a consequence, a four-year period of ineligibility, beginning on 24 August 2015, has been imposed and all results achieved between 26 July 2010 and 19 August 2013, are disqualified and any prizes, medals, prize and appearance money forfeited.”
Savinova was one of five Russian athletes named in a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report into doping.
She has not raced since 2013 after being suspended during an investigation sparked by the release of undercover footage filmed by whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova.
Should the International Olympic Committee decide to reallocate the medals from the London 2012 final, Semenya would be awarded a second gold after she claimed the 800m title in Rio last summer.
Savinova is now the second Russian finalist from that race to have been retrospectively banned – after Yelena Arzhakova – while a third – bronze medallist Ekaterina Poistogova – is also under investigation for doping.
-Additional report from BBC-