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Korean weightlifter recovers bronze medal missed 8 years ago

Korean weightlifter recovers bronze medal missed 8 years ago

Posted July. 25, 2016 07:04,   

Updated July. 25, 2016 07:16

한국어

Lim Jeong-hwa (30), a former member of the Korean national weightlifting team, is set to receive an Olympic medal that she missed eight years ago. The International Olympic Committee has decided to deprive Sibel Özkan of the silver medal on Saturday, saying that the Turkish athlete had taken "anabolic steroid," a muscle strengthening drug. She acquired the silver medal in the women’s 48-kilogram weightlifting competition at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Therefore, Lim Jeong-hwa, who ranked fourth in the class at the time, will receive the bronze medal. Lim lifted 196 kilograms overall by raising 86 kilograms in snatch and 110 kilograms in clean, to tie with Chen Wei Ling of Taiwan, but she lost the bronze since she weighed 500 grams more than Chen.

The International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency are conducting doping tests on all Russian athletes and medalists who participated in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Depending on results of the doping test on Adelina Sotnikova who won the gold medal in women’s figure skating competition in Sochi, Kim Yu-na, the silver medalist at the event, could receive the gold.

In an interview with the New York Times in May, Gregory Rodchenkov, director of the Russian Anti-doping Agency (RUSADA), confessed that at least 15 Russian athletes among those who acquired medals at the Sochi Olympics took banned drugs. In its Saturday report entitled "Sochi scandal could see Kim end up with gold," the Japanese English daily Japan Times hinted at the possibility for forfeiture of Sotnikova’s medal.



유재영기자 elegant@donga.com