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The sad reality behind this tweet on the dirty women’s 1,500m final in London

By Scott Olberding

March 30, 2017

With recent news of doping sanctions against Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse and Gamze Bulut, U.S. Olympian Morgan Uceny, who fell in the 2012 1,500 meter final in London, teed up the following tweet:

Reflecting on her race and presumed missed opportunity due to those allegedly doping in that race, she faces the stark reality that her moment was robbed, not really knowing how good she was against a clean field.

Here is the list of women in that final, with a note on whether or not they have been implicated in an an alleged doping scheme:

2012 Olympic champion Asli Cakir-Alptekin was stripped of the gold medals she won at the London Olympics and 2012 European Championships due to abnormalities in her her biological passport. She was banned for eight years but the suspension was reduced and she raced at the European club cross country championships earlier in the year.

Tatyana Tomashova is still the 2012 silver medalist behind Jamal because the Russian’s doping sentence ran from 2007 to 2011. She’s returned to competition and was a world championship 1,500m finalist in 2015.

Abeba Aregawi, who finished ahead of American Shannon Rowbury, has moved into the bronze medal position due to the latest sanctions. Aregawi did test positive for Meldonium in 2016 and has not competed since 2015. Meldonium was added to the banned substance list on Jan. 1, 2016 and a flurry of athletes, including tennis star Maria Sharapova, tested positive for the drug.

Scott Olberding

Full-time accountant, amateur marathoner and statistics editor for Citius Mag. Focused on creating arithmetic visualization and writing narrative for data-centric athletic ideas. Founding member of the JBAC and University of Portland Alumnus. Hosted Paul Snyder on his recruiting trip to UP, taking him to an Astronomy class. Although Paul did not commit, they have since become great friends.