IOC takes back gold medal

Women's Olympic shot put champion Irina Korzhanenko of Russia will lose her gold medal after testing positive for a banned steroid, the head of the Russian Olympic Committee's anti-doping body said yesterday.

"The International Olympic Committee has begun the process of withdrawing the medal," Nikolai Durmanov told Reuters.

"We are very disappointed," he said, adding that despite a drive to clean up Russian sport its administrators, himself included, had failed and might now be "sacrificed" for change.

Korzhanenko, 30, won the first athletics gold of the Athens Games on Wednesday at Ancient Olympia and failed a test immediately after the competition there.

From Wednesday's results, Cuba's Yumileidi Cumba will now step up to the gold. Nadine Kleinert of Germany will move up to silver and Russia's Svetlana Krivelyova takes the bronze.

Durmanov said a B sample also gave a positive reading yesterday that confirmed the drug was stanozolol, the anabolic steroid used by Canadian Ben Johnson when he won the 1988 Seoul Olympic 100 metres final in world record time.

Korzhanenko, the European champion, was awarded the 1999 world indoor gold medal when Ukrainian Vita Pavlysh was banned for doping but lost the title herself after a positive test.