Courtesy: International Olympic Committee
The protection of clean athletes and the fight against doping are top priorities for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), as outlined in Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement. The IOC is currently conducting additional analyses on the samples collected from the Olympic Games London 2012. This programme, which uses the latest scientific analysis methods, aims to test samples for all the substances prohibited in 2012.
The IOC has delegated the selection of samples to be reanalysed and the results management to the International Testing Agency (ITA), and the ITA thus brings forward these cases.
The notification sent by the ITA to the athletes concerned when initiating proceedings gives them the choice to have their case heard before the CAS or before an IOC Disciplinary Commission. This choice is given as the Anti-Doping Rules (ADR) for the Olympic Games London 2012 still apply for cases that arise from the current reanalyses. In the case at hand, the athlete did not choose to go to the CAS (or did not express any choice) and the case was automatically handled by the IOC Disciplinary Commission.
As part of this process, the IOC today announced that one athlete has been sanctioned from the Olympic Games London 2012. The details follow.
Klodiana Shala, 40, of Albania, competing in the Women’s 200m Athletics event at the Olympic Games London 2012, before which she withdrew due to injury, has been sanctioned. Re-analysis of Shala’s samples from London 2012 resulted in a positive test for the prohibited substance Stanozolol.
The IOC Disciplinary Commission, composed for this case of Messrs Denis Oswald (Chairman), Juan Antonio Samaranch and Ingmar De Vos, decided the following:
I.The Athlete, Klodiana Shala:
– is found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation pursuant to the IOC Anti-Doping Rules applicable to the Games of the XXX Olympiad in London in 2012 (presence of Prohibited Substances or their Metabolites or Markers in the Athlete’s bodily specimen),
II.World Athletics is requested to consider any further action within its own competence.
III.The National Olympic Committee of Albania shall ensure the full implementation of this decision.
IV.The decision enters into force immediately.
The full decision is available here.
The reanalysis programme for the samples from the Olympic Games London 2012 will continue until the end of the statute of limitations period is reached in August 2020*.
You can find at the following links the list of anti-doping rule violations during or after the Olympic Games and the detailed results of the IOC reanalysis programme from 2004 to today.
This is part of the IOC’s efforts to protect clean athletes and the integrity of the competition. The IOC has been storing samples from the Olympic Games since Athens 2004, and has reanalysed them systematically. The fight against doping is a top priority for the IOC, which has established a zero-tolerance policy to combat cheating and to make anyone responsible for using or providing doping products accountable.
* Please note that, for legal reasons, the IOC will not give detailed information on possible cases. This would follow in due course.
Retired and wasn’t even a contender at London. Boring.