5 Russians banned for doping at Olympics, track worlds
MOSCOW (AP) Five Russian athletes have been given two-year doping bans for offenses at the 2012 Olympics and 2013 track and field world championships, the All-Russian Athletics Federation said Wednesday.
The five include Antonina Krivoshapka, who won silver with the Russian 4x400 relay team at the Olympics, and Yevgenia Kolodko, who was the 2012 Olympic shot put silver medalist.
Both had previously been stripped of those medals by the International Olympic Committee.
Krivoshapka's ban means she is likely to be stripped of 4x400 gold and individual 400 bronze medals from the 2013 world championships, though the IAAF did not immediately confirm this.
That would elevate the U.S. team of Jessica Beard, Natasha Hastings, Ashley Spencer and Francena McCorory to relay gold, with silver for Britain and bronze for France.
The Jamaican runner Stephanie McPherson would inherit Krivoshapka's individual 400 bronze.
Kolodko could lose a silver medal from the 2013 European indoor championship.
There are also two-year bans for pole vaulter Dmitry Starodubtsev, who was fourth at the Olympics and discus thrower Vera Ganeyeva, who was 23rd at the Olympics. Hammer thrower Anna Bulgakova was given a ban for failing a retest of the sample she gave when finishing fifth at the 2013 worlds.
The All-Russian Athletics Federation said in a statement that all five had ''voluntarily admitted a violation of anti-doping rules'' after their failed retests had come to light.
All five had tested positive for the banned steroid turinabol, which the former Moscow laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov has said he gave to Russian athletes as part of a steroid cocktail in a wide-ranging doping operation. There was no verdict on whether he was involved in the five cases announced Wednesday.
