MOSCOW: European indoor silver medallist Olesya Syreva has been banned for two years for breaking anti-doping regulations, the Russian athletics federation (VFLA) said yesterday.
The 29-year-old middle-distance runner had shown an “abnormal haemoglobin profile in her biological passport”, the VFLA said on its website (rusathletics.com).
Marathon runner Mikhail Lemaev, who finished 45th in the men’s marathon at the 2009 world championships in Berlin, was also given a two-year ban for the same offence, the VFLA said.
Syreva’s ban began on Friday and all her results since March 3, 2011 had been annulled, the VFLA added.
The Russian, who finished behind Britain’s Helen Clitheroe in the women’s 3,000 metres at the European indoor championships in Paris in March 2011, will now lose her medal.
The suspensions were the latest in a series of doping offences by Russian athletes in recent months.
In December, 2012 Olympic discus silver medallist Darya Pishchalnikova and Russian hammer champion Kirill Ikonnikov, who finished fifth at the London Games, were temporarily suspended while Olympic 2004 hammer champion Olga Kuzenkova was placed under investigation by the world governing body IAAF for failing drugs tests.
Also in December, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped shot putter Svetlana Krivelyova of her bronze medal from the 2004 Athens Games.
Krivelyova, 43 and long retired from the sport, tested positive for anabolic steroids after her samples from eight years ago were re-tested.REUTERS
