FILE PHOTO: Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov (in red) celebrates victory over Georgia’s Davit Modzmanashvili on the final of the Men’s 120Kg Freestyle wrestling at the ExCel venue during the London 2012 Olympic Games August 11, 2012. REUTERS/Grigory Dukor
January 17, 2019
(Reuters) – Georgian wrestler Davit Modzmanashvili has been stripped of his London 2012 Olympic silver medal for doping violations, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Thursday.
A re-analysis of Modzmanashvili’s samples from the London Games resulted in a positive test for the banned substance oral turinabol, the IOC said in a statement.
The 32-year-old has been ordered to return the silver medal he won in the men’s freestyle wrestling 120kg event.
Modzmanashvili can appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport or an IOC disciplinary commission.
The IOC is conducting additional doping analyses on the samples from athletes collected at the 2012 Games, using the latest scientific methods.
The reanalysis will continue for the rest of the year until the statute of limitations is reached by 2020.
“As the International Testing Agency (ITA) is now operational, the IOC has delegated the selection of samples to be reanalyzed and the results management to the ITA, which will therefore review all the (London 2012) test results and notify the athletes concerned,” the IOC said in a statement.
Modzmanashvili, who was a member of the Georgia team at the 2012 Games, has represented Uzbekistan since 2017.
(Reporting by Hardik Vyas in Bengaluru; editing by Ken Ferris)
