Mercy Njoroge also benefits from the disqualification of Russian athletes over biological passport irregularities
Former World 3,000m steeplechase champion Milcah Chemos has been upgraded to the 2012 Olympic Games bronze and Daegu world championship silver medals.
This follows the stripping of the gold medal from Russia’s Yuliya Zaripova for doping violations by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The IAAF discovered irregularities in the Russian runners biological passport.
The disqualification means Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi has been upgraded to the gold medal with Ethiopia’s Sofia Assefa moving up to silver and Chemos up to the bronze.
Zaripova’s disqualification also means she has surrendered her 2011 Daegu, South Korea World championships gold medal to Ghribi, Chemos gets the Daegu Silver and compatriot Mercy Njoroge the Bronze.
In the meantime all competitive results obtained by Zaripova between July 20, 2011 to July 25, 2013 have been disqualified.
Five other Russian athletes have seen their doping appeals dismissed. They include Sergei Kirdyapkin, the walk gold medal winner at the London Olympics, race walker Sergey Bakalin, 2008 Beijing Olympic 20 km walk gold medallist Olga Kaniskina who also won the world title in Osaka, Japan in 2007 .
Valery Borchin was the Olympic walk gold medal winner in 2008 and the 2009 World championships in Berlin and Vladimir Kanaykin another race walker.
The five Russian athletes had appealed the decision to ban them but the appeals were rejected by the arbitration panel.
A statement from the Court of Arbitratiopn for Sports (Cas)read:”The appeals concern one element of decisions issued by the disciplinary committee of the Russian Anti-doping Agency (Rusada) in anti-doping cases brought against the athletes, based on irregularities observed in the athletes’ biological passports.
“The IAAF claimed that Rusada had incorrectly applied the applicable anti-doping rules adopted by IAAF (the “IAAF ADR”) to implement the provisions of the World Anti-Doping Code with respect to the disqualification of competitive results (disqualification of results split in different periods). The IAAF challenged what it felt was a ‘selective’ disqualification of results, submitting that all results achieved by the athletes from the date of their first abnormal sample to the date they accepted provisional suspension should be disqualified.
In each case, the appeal filed by the IAAF has been upheld and the decision issued by the Disciplinary Anti-Doping Committee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency for each athlete.”
