Sprint athlete Serghei Tarnovschi stripped of his Olympic bronze medal

Sebastian Brendel (GER) and silver medal winner Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos (BRA). Selfie at the C1 1000m medal ceremony. Photo from Sebastian Brendel Facebook page.

Update 12 July 2017 – Moldovan canoe sprint athlete Serghei Tarnovschi will officially be stripped of his Olympic bronze medal after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed his appeal against a four-year doping ban.

In a press release 19 August 2016 the International Canoe Federation (ICF) announced that Olympic Canoe Sprint C1M 1000m Bronze medallist, Serghei Tarnovschi (MDA) has been provisionally* suspended with immediate effect following adverse results from a pre-competition [doping] test.

* ‘provissionally’ – Update ICF 19 August 2016

Tarnovschi won Bronze at the C1M 1000m event but didn’t show up at the press conference. Only Gold medal winner Sebastian Brendel (GER) and silver medal winner Isaquias Queiroz dos Santos (BRA) were present.

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Vladislav Rojnov on Facebook: Tarnovschi’s (doping) sample taken right after winning his bronze medal was negative. His pre-competition test [positive] was known at the ICF early August. The ICF did let him compete in Rio.

Brendel blanked out Tarnovschi’ face on a selfie he took at the medal ceremony [see photo above] and he made very clear on his Facebook page how he thinks about athletes that use doping:

“I have to update my photo from last Tuesday. I am furious and I hope that for these kind of people there is no place in sport.”

Ilia Shtokalov
If Tarnovschi will be disqualified from the race it’s likely that Ilia Shtokalov (RUS) becomes the new Bronze medallist in the C1 1000m event.

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