Russian race walker Yelena Lashmanova has been banned for two years for doping and will be stripped of her Olympic gold medal, the Athletics Integrity Unit said.
Lashmanova won gold in the 20-kilometre race walk at the 2012 London Olympics and also at the world championships in Moscow the following year.
The Athletics Integrity Unit said the charges were based on Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) data as well as evidence provided by Richard McLaren, who led the investigations into state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes.
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“Russian race walker Yelena Lashmanova has been banned for two years, starting 9 March 2021, for the use of prohibited substances, a violation of World Athletics anti-doping rules,” the AIU said in a statement.
“Lashmanova has accepted the sanction proposed by the AIU… She is set to lose gold medals from the women’s 20-km race walk event at the London 2012 Olympic Games and 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.”
The Russian walker was previously handed a two-year doping ban in 2014 and had been coached by Viktor Chegin, who was banned for life from athletics in 2016 over the Russian doping scandal.
Russia’s athletics federation was suspended by World Athletics in 2015 following a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report containing allegations of state-supported doping, which Moscow denied.
The ban is backdated to March 9, 2021, and all of her results between February 18, 2012, and January 3, 2014, have been disqualified, the AIU said.
Lashmanova is the sixth Russian track and field gold medal from the London Games to be taken away due to doping.
Russia originally won 18 medals and eight golds in track and field at the 2012 Olympics. After Lashmanova’s medal is officially stripped, those totals will be seven medals and two golds.
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