The Romanian Olympic all-around gymnastics champion Andreea Raducan has been stripped of her gold medal after failing a drugs test, taken after her team doctor prescribed Nurofen, an over-the-counter medication for colds and flu that anyone can walk into a pharmacy and buy.
Raducan: stripped of gold medal © PA
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Thomas Bach, the International Olympics Committee member, said that Raducan had been disqualified after testing positive for the banned stimulant pseudoephedrine. He added that she would keep her team gold medal and her silver medal from the vault competition.
Bach said the team doctor was to blame for the loss of Raducan’s gold medal and had been banned from the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City and the 2004 Olympics in Athens. "He has the real responsibility in this case," Bach said. "He prescribed the medication to this girl. It’s a good signal to all the people surrounding the athletes that they can be punished."
Raducan late today appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, challenging the IOC's decision. A hearing has been scheduled for tomorrow. “The CAS will decide after that hearing whether or not a final decision will be issued on the same day,” the court, set up by the
IOC to rule on sporting disputes during competition, said in a statement.
"It was a very difficult case. I don’t know of any case like this before," said the IOC vice-president Kevan Gosper after an executive committee meeting early today.
Raducan, who turns 17 on Saturday, became the first Romanian to win all-around gold since Nadia Comaneci, who scored a perfect ten in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She is the first gymnast to fail a drugs case in the Olympics and the second gold medal-winner of these Games to lose her medal after the Bulgarian weightlifter Izabela Dragneva.
Pseudoephedrine is a banned stimulant contained in many common cold and flu remedies. The drug is on the IOC’s banned list but is not banned by the International Gymnastics Federation.
Raducan led Romania to the team title a week ago and led a clean-sweep of the medals in the all-around. Her compatriots Simona Amanar and Maria Olaru took silver and bronze but now move up, while China’s Xuan Liu, who was placed fourth, takes the bronze medal.
The Times
Romanians return medals in protest
Romania has protested against the IOC decision to strip all-around gymnastics champion Andreea Raducan of her gold medal by returning the three women’s all-around Olympic medals, according to reports.
The level of drug found in Raducan’s urine sample was 90 nanograms per milliliter, more than three times greater than the 24 nanograms per milliliter allowed by the IOC.
Raducan has appealed the International Olympic Committee executive board decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which was to discuss the matter on Wednesday. She was tested after winning a silver in the vault Sunday, but the sample was negative. She was not tested after the team competition.
Romanian gymnasts Simona Amanar, who won silver, and Maria Olaru, who won bronze, in the all-around competition, have turned in their medals in protest, Romanian national television reported.
Octavian Belu, the team coach, has not been seen since he learned of the test results two days ago.
The Times
