Ramzi Stripped Of Olympic Title

Rashid Ramzi

Bahrain's Olympic 1500m champion has been stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for doping at the 2008 Beijing Games.

Ramzi, who was his country's first Olympic champion, was one of five athletes who tested positive in April for new blood-booster Cera.

The 29-year-old faces a two-year ban but is expected to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Kenya's Asbel Kipruto Kiprop, who came second, is set to be upgraded to gold.

Nicolas Willis of New Zealand could go from bronze to silver with France's fourth-place finisher Mehdi Baala getting the bronze.

Britain's double Olympic 1500m champion Sebastian Coe, who is chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee and an International Association of Athletics Federations vice president, praised the decision to strip Ramzi of his medal.

He said: "That was the right decision. Cheats cannot prosper in our sport and people will realise that sooner or later.

"Unfortunately, that was high profile and we can do without it, but it also shows the quality of our testing procedures now."

On Tuesday, Italy's Davide Rebellin had his Olympic cycling road race silver taken away after a positive dope test.

Three non-medal winners, German cyclist Stefan Schumacher, Croatian 800m runner Vanja Perisic and Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka also tested positive for Cera, an advanced version of endurance-enhancing hormone EPO, in retesting of Beijing samples. The International Olympic Committee had already disqualified nine other athletes for doping at the Beijing Games, including Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska who was stripped of her silver medal, and North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, who had his silver and bronze medals taken away.