Kazakh weightlifters stripped of medals

The International Olympic Committee has announced that three Kazakh weightlifters have been stripped of the gold medals they won at the 2012 London Olympics after failing doping tests in re-analysis of their samples.

The three are Zulfiya Chinshanlo in the women’s 53kg category, Maiya Maneza in the women’s 63kg and Svetlana Podobedova, who competed in the 75kg event.

Generally, a total of 98 samples mostly from eastern European countries or Russia have come back positive for banned substances in re-analysis from the 2008 and 2012 Games as the IOC attempted to root out cheats and stop them from competing in this year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

On Wednesday the IOC announced nine other positive cases from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including six medallists, all of whom also tested positive for steroids.

The IOC stores samples for a decade to test with newer methods or to analyse performance-enhancing substances that have yet to be identified.