Indonesia gets weightlifting silver medal
Indonesia gets weightlifting silver medal
SYDNEY (Agencies): Indonesia picked up on Friday a weightlifting silver medal after Bulgarian muscle woman Izabela Dragneva was disqualified for drugs.
Dragneva, who competed in the women's 48kg division, and her countryman Sevdalin Minchev, the bronze medalist in the 62kg category, were stripped of their medals after traces of banned diuretics were found in urine samples.
The disqualification of Dragneva moved American Tara Nott up to the gold, Indonesia's Raema Lisa Rumbewas to silver and another Indonesian, Sri Indriyani, to bronze.
Gennady Oleshchuk of Belarus was promoted to bronze from fourth place in the men's 62kg.
"It was just starting to sink in that I won the silver, so right now I'm kind of in shock," said Nott, who also becomes America's first weightlifting gold medalist in 40 years.
The medals were presented by International Olympics Committee (IOC) vice president Dick Pound at the Athletes Village on Friday.
An Indonesian official, Indra Kartasasmita, said the organizing committee provided Lisa's mother, Ida, with a pass to the athletes village, which was valid only for two hours, upon request of the Indonesian team.
Indriyani, promoted to bronze medal, told reporters that she would heal her injury completely in her hometown Surakarta after the Games.
"I prefer to heal the injury in my hometown, besides I want to see parents before joining the training camp for the 2001 SEA Games," the former junior champion said by phone.
Following the findings, Bulgaria's weightlifting team was expelled from the Olympics. The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) slapped the ban on the Bulgarians under its "three strikes and out rule", which allows for a national association to be suspended if three lifters test positive within 12 months of each other.
On Wednesday, men's 56kg silver medalist Ivan Ivanov met the same fate after also testing positive for furosemide, a steroid- masking agent.
"The Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation is suspended forthwith for a period of not less than 12 months pending an investigation," the IWF said in a statement on Friday.
"All remaining lifters as well as officers from the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation will not be able to take part in the Olympic Games."
IWF vice-president Sam Coffa said the governing body believed the drugs had been taken by the lifters to lose weight.
"We have concluded that they took these drugs to lose weight and nothing else. We tested them before the games and if they were taking the diuretics to cover steroid use it would have shown up," Coffa said at a press conference.
Under the IWF's current anti-doping policy a clause allowed the payment of a US$50,000 fine to stay at the Games, invoked by the Rumanian team earlier this week.
However IWF general-secretary Tamas Ajan told a press conference that accepting a fine to allow the Bulgarians to continue competing had not been an option.
"Absolutely not," he said when asked if the IWF had considered allowing Bulgaria to pay the fine.
"We would not accept money. This is the Olympic Games ... it's a completely different case to the Rumanians, which were pre- Games tests."
Coffa said an example needed to be made of the banned team.
"This is a completely different atmosphere. These were Olympic medalists -- surely they must be dealt with in a stronger way," he added.
In a further twist Friday, two Bulgarian-born weightlifters due to represent Qatar at the Olympics withdrew from competition citing health reason, officials said.
Salelem Nayef Badr formerly Petar Tanev, and Sulyan Abbas Nader, formerly Andrey Ivanov, pulled out from Friday's men's 77kg category final complaining of a "virus," weightlifting officials said.
The two men had been training with the team banned Bulgarian team prior to the Games.
Meanwhile, China's Ding Meiyuan smashed three world records to take Olympic gold in the superheavyweight category of the women's weightlifting competition on Friday.
Agata Wrobel of Poland also broke world records in the snatch and the clean-and-jerk in the over 75kg weight class only to see Ding break them again within minutes.
Wrobel took silver while American Cheryl Haworth, who at 139.38kg became the heaviest woman ever to step onto the Olympic weightlifting platform, took bronze.
Ding's success means all four members of the unstoppable Chinese women's team will leave Sydney with a gold medal.