Russia stripped of Beijing 2008 4x400m women's silver medal
Fri Aug 19, 2016 9:52pm BST Reuters
Members of Russia's women's 4 x 400 relay team pose with their silver medals during the medal ceremony of the athletics competition in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 23, 2008. The members of the team are Yulia Gushchina, Liudmila Litvinova,... REUTERS/Mike Blake (CHINA)
By Karolos Grohmann | RIO DE JANEIRO
Russia have been stripped of the 4x400m women's relay silver medal from the Beijing Olympics after Anastasia Kapachinskaya tested positive for a steroid in a re-test of her sample, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Friday.
"Re-analysis of Kapachinskaya’s samples from Beijing 2008 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substances stanozolol and dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol)," the IOC said.
Jamaica were third and Belarus finished in fourth place in the Beijing race.
"The IAAF (international athletics federation) is requested to modify the results of the above-mentioned events accordingly and to consider any further action within its own competence," the IOC said.
Kapachinskaya was also disqualified from her 400m run where she had placed fifth.
Her Russian team mates Alexander Pogorelov, who was fourth in the decathlon, and shotputter Ivan Yushkov also had their Beijing Games results canceled out after testing positive for the same substance.
Yushkov was 10th in his event eight years ago.
Earlier this week Russia were ordered to return their gold medals from the 4x100m women's relay from the same Games after Yulia Chermoshanskaya also tested positive in a re-test.
The IOC stores samples for a decade to test with newer methods or for new substances. The ruling body conducted targeted re-tests before the Rio Olympics.
A total of 98 samples were positive in reanalysis of samples from both the Beijing Games and the 2012 London Olympics as the IOC attempted to root out cheats and stop them from going to the Rio Games.
Russia's track and field team, with the exception of one athlete based in the United States, were banned from the Rio Games over what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said was a state-backed doping program.
Japan
'It's exhilarating': Japan's female sumo wrestlers take on sexism
Amateur wrestlers hope ban on women in the professional arena will one day be overturned
Justin McCurry in Gifu Mon 18 Jun 2018 20.04 EDT Last modified on Mon 18 Jun 2018 23.51 EDT
Eight of the current nine members of the Asahi University women sumo team pose for a group photo by the Dohyo Photograph: Laura Liverani for the Guardian
It isn’t hard to see why Chisaki Okumura is one of Japan’s best female sumo wrestlers. Combining her considerable height and heft with flashes of speed, her practice bouts end with a succession of opponents thrown to the ground or shoved unceremoniously out of the ring.
On a humid, wet afternoon in central Japan, Okumura draws on her reserves of strength for a final, punishing series of drills with a male opponent. By the end, it is hard to tell who is more exhausted.
For more than two hours every weekday afternoon, the 17 men and nine women of Asahi University’s sumo club stretch, warm up and perform drills together, although for safety reasons they conduct full-on bouts separately.
Training is centered on two dohyo – a dirt-covered 4.55m diameter circle marked out with half-buried rice-straw bales - which are among the few places where female sumo wrestlers are defying the centuries-old sport’s uneasy relationship with gender.
Pic=A female and a male member of the Asahi University sumo team practice against each other during their daily training. Photograph: Laura Liverani for the
As amateurs, the women athletes at Asahi and other universities are not bound by the ancient traditions governing professional sumo - in which only men can compete. But that might not be the case for much longer.
Many hope the ban on women joining the professional sumo ranks will one day be overturned, proving that deep-seated misogyny has no place in a sport striving to be accepted as an Olympic event.
In April, not long after professional sumo was rocked again by allegations of bullying and violence, an incident at an exhibition tournament in Maizuru, near Kyoto, triggered a new campaign to rid Japan’s de facto national sport of its sexist traditions.
The row was triggered by after several women, including at least one nurse, rushed on to the ring to administer first aid to the local mayor, who had collapsed after suffering a stroke. Using the public address system, the referee repeatedly ordered them to leave the ring, but the women refused.
Officials sprinkled “purifying” salt on the wrestling surface after they had left. Sumo officials later denied that this had been done because of the women’s presence in the ring. Salt is customarily scattered on the ring before bouts and after a wrestler has been injured.
The impromptu first responders had fallen foul of an ancient rule banning women from entering, or even touching, the dohyo.
The rule has prevented local female politicians from presenting awards inside the ring.
The Maizuru incident not only embarrassed sumo but was also seen as a metaphor for the treatment of women in Japan, which performs poorly in global tables of gender equality and female political representation.
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Tomoko Nakagawa, the mayor of Takarazuka in western Japan, has unsuccessfully petitioned the Japan sumo association to lift the ban. “I can’t understand why it is only the sumo world that refuses to change or is even going backwards,” she told Agence France-Presse.
The sport’s struggle with sexism is equally baffling to Okumura, who has been wrestling since she was at middle school.
“Sumo shouldn’t be thought of as a sport for men and women, it’s for everyone,” says Okumura, runner-up in last month’s international women’s sumo invitational championships in the 64-80kg category.
“I definitely benefit from being able to train with the men, and I don’t get the impression that they’re looking down on me and the other women. If I were allowed to compete against them in a proper bout I think I could hold my own.”
The Asahi club was formed eight years ago and is now one of about half a dozen women’s sumo clubs at Japanese universities. The female members use the same number of kimarite – or winning moves – as the men, but wear their mawashi belts over shorts and T-shirts.
“There are some people who still struggle to accept the idea of women’s sumo, but I’ve never thought it was at all unusual,” says Shigeto Takahashi, the club’s manager, who has been coaching female wrestlers for 35 years. “The only real difference is that the women have to be a little more careful about injuring their shoulders, but they’re not allowed to wear any padding.”
Kaori Matsui, an associate professor in the university’s department of health and sports sciences, and the club’s deputy manager, said it was natural for women to compete in sumo, having already broken down barriers in other contact sports such as wrestling and judo.
Pic=Two members of the Asahi University women sumo team go through their routine training, practicing Shiko, or foot stomping. Photograph: Laura Liverani
The number of new women taking up amateur sumo is static, however, a problem she blames on the dearth of female coaches to offer guidance to girls and young women.
“Some people I meet are amazed that there is even an international women’s sumo scene,” she says. “There needs to be a more coordinated approach to promoting the brilliance of women’s sumo. When you watch it close up, it’s exhilarating.”
While weary wrestlers gulp down cups of cold tea from a copper kettle, Minayo Nishimoto shows few signs of fatigue - unsurprising, perhaps, for a woman who has been hurling her comparatively slight frame around sumo rings since she was nine years old.
“I understand that the dohyo is regarded as sacred, but whichever way you look at it, the ban on women is sexist,” says Nishimoto, who prides herself on her uwatenage overarm throw. “But that just makes me all the more determined to carry on and be the best female wrestler in Japan.”
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