Russian Biathlete To Be Stripped Of Sochi Winter Olympics Gold Medal

The IBU said in the February 15 posting that Yevgeny Ustyugov had used the banned substance oxandrolone. It also said Ustyugov was barred from competing for two years, although he retired from competition shortly after the Sochi games.

Ustyugov, together with Aleksei Volkov, Dmitry Malyshko and Anton Shipulin, won the gold medal in the men’s relay biathlon at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014.

When confirmed by the International Olympic Committee, this will knock Russia off top spot in the Sochi medal table in terms of golds. The host nation would have 10 golds, against 11 for Norway, and 28 total medals, the joint-most along with the United States.

The Salzburg-based IBU also announced a similar two-year sanction for Svetlana Sleptsova, a Russian who didn’t win any medals in Sochi, over the banned substance ostarine.

The cases are based on disputed data from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.

The computer files were obtained last year by the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has since said it considers some of the data to have been tampered with to cover up doping.

WADA has banned Russia’s name and flag from the 2020 Olympics as a result.