Doping ruling could bring Kaliese Spencer first Olympic medal

Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer is poised to claim the first major global medal of her career after a Russian athlete, Natalya Antyukh, was stripped of her 2012 Olympic 400-metre hurdles title.

The Athletics Integrity Unit today released a ruling that Antyukh has been banned for the use of a prohibited substance or method based on database evidence.

The ruling resulted in her results from July 2012 through to June 2013, a period in which she won the women's 400m Olympic title in London.

Spencer finished fourth in that final in a season's best time of 53.66 and with the decision, she would be upgraded to a bronze medal. The case can be appealed.

Antyukh is already serving a four-year ban because of a doping case related to evidence from the 2016 McLaren report on Russian doping with her results from July 2013 through December 2015 also stripped. The reallocation of medals would mean that American Lashinda Demus would be upgraded to gold, while Czech Republic's Zuzana Hejnova's bronze medal would change to silver.

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