Russian weightlifter Oxana Slivenko, a gold medalist in the 2008 Beijing Olympics who also earned gold at the World and European Championships, is among 13 European weightlifters who are facing charges from the International Testing Agency over doping in the leadup to the 2012 London Olympics, according to a report by the Associated Press.
The cases that involve Slivenko date from the 2012 European Championships, and follow ITA re-testing of old samples. The case involves 13 weightlifters from eight different countries, 11 of whom won medals at the event. Eight of the weightlifters have already served bans for doping at some point in their careers, and most are now retired from weightlifting.
Slivenko won gold at the 2012 Championships before withdrawing from the London Olympics due to injury. She served a doping-related ban from 2018 to 2020, and the 34-year old from Chekhov is also accused of a separate doping issue stemming from data at a defunct drug-testing laboratory in Moscow.
All weightlifters implicated in the case have been suspended until their respective cases are resolved. Although any who were found to have doped at the European Championships would subsequently be disqualified from the 2012 Olympics, their disqualifications would not affect their medals. Two weightlifters charged by the ITA include Cristina Iovu of Moldova and Razvan Martin of Romania, both of whom were already stripped of their medals for doping-related offenses.
The past year has seen a great increase in scrutiny over doping in weightlifting, as it was revealed in June of 2020 that an investigation revealed the International Weightlifting Federation to have engaged in “systematic governance failures and corruption at the highest level,” with doping cases being covered up and millions of dollars unaccounted for. The improprieties occurred under the watch of former IWF president Tamas Ajan, who stepped down in April of 2020.
