Lashinda Demus will now get a gold medal for the 400-meter hurdle race from the 2012 London Olympic Games due to Russian Olympian Natalya Antyukh being stripped of her gold medal following proof of doping 10 years later.
On Wednesday, the Athletics Integrity Unit, which manages track and field doping cases, announced it could “proceed with the reallocation of medals and the update of the IOC database” since Antyukh didn’t respond to a penalty, CBS News reports.
This reallocation positioned Zuzana Hejnová of the Czech Republic and Kaliese Spencer of Jamaica to receive the silver and bronze medals for the 2012 race.
According to the Seattle Times, the Court of Arbitration for Sport issued Antyukh a four-year ban last year. The AIU’s ruling stems from evidence at a Moscow anti-doping laboratory used to finalize multiple cases following state-sponsored doping sessions in Russia, per The Washington Post.
Demus, who last competed in 2016, told NBC in an email exchange after being notified of AIU’s announcement, “I’m not afraid to say that I then deserve the official title, medal, recognition, and missed compensation that goes along with it all.”
