NAIROBI, Kenya, July 8 – Olympic silver medalist Asbel Kiprop is set to be awarded gold after Rashid Ramzi’s B sample tested positive.
The Moroccan born Bahraini will now be stripped off the gold with 20 year old Kiprop upgrading to gold.
The gold will take Kenya’s tally at the games to six gold making it officially the most successful games in the country’s history.
Ramzi had requested for a second test after it emerged that his A sample had tested positive for Cera – an advanced version of endurance-enhancing hormone EPO during a re-testing done on all samples collected during the 2008 Olympic Games.
Reports of the B sample results from Hamburg Germany confirmed that Ramzi’s as well as cyclists Stefan Schumacher and Davide Rebellin had all tested positive.
Ramzi was one of seven medalists who tested positive in the re-testing which involved six athletes carried and was carried out by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) said that lawyers of the five athletes have met to discuss a strategy in their appeals before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The German was caught for using CERA at retests of Tour de France 2008 samples and of those retested by the International Olympic Committee from the Beijing Olympics.
Italy’s Rebellin, the Bahrain runner Ramzi, Greek walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka and Croatian 800m runner Vanja Perisic were also caught in the IOC retests, with the b-sample confirming the original finding, according to the FAZ.
The former world champion Ramzi won 1,500m gold in Beijing while Rebellin got a cycling silver in China. The other three did not medal, but Schumacher won both time trials at the 2008 Tour before being disqualified.
Kenya was the highest placed African nation at the Beijing games with six gold, five silvers and four bronze.
Pamela Jelimo, Nancy Jebet Lagat, Brimin Kipruto, Samuel Wanjiru and Wilfred Bungei scooped gold medals.
Eunice Jepkorir, Catherine Ndereba, Asbel Kiprop, Janeth Jepkosgei and Eliud Kipchoge clinched silver while Micah Kogo, Alfred Kirwa, Richard Mateelong and Edwin Soi won bronze.