(Reuters) – Olympic hammer throw champion Dilshod Nazarov of Tajikistan has been handed a backdated two-year doping ban, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Thursday, and will be unable to defend his title at this year’s Tokyo Olympics.
The AIU said in a statement the 38-year-old’s samples from the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea, in which he finished 10th, had been re-tested and contained a prohibited substance. He has been banned starting from Sept. 24, 2019.
All of his results between Aug. 29, 2011 and Aug. 29, 2013 are now disqualified and Nazarov will not be allowed to compete at the Tokyo Games which are due to begin on July 23.
Nazarov won the Olympic men’s hammer competition at Rio 2016 to capture the Central Asian country’s first gold medal since it gained independence with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
He won silver in the 2015 world championships and gold in the Asian Games in 2006, 2010 and 2014.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
