New Delhi: Gomathi Marimuthu has been banned for four years and stripped off her 2019 Asian Championships gold medal, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Friday.
The AIU said that the 31-year-old Indian runner will be banned until May 2023 and disqualified from all races in a two-month period last year.
Marimuthu tested positive for anabolic steroid nandrolone at the 2019 Asian championships in April. The announcement on Friday came after her ‘B' sample also returned positive for nandrolone.
It followed three more positive tests from samples taken in India in the previous month. Those test results were confirmed after she won the Asian title.
All of Gomathi's competition results between March 18 and May 17, 2019 stand annulled. The Tamil Nadu athlete's medals, titles, ranking points and prize and appearance money are to be forfeited as well.
Marimuthu can now appeal the decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Gomathi won the gold medal in 800m race at Asian Athletics Championship in Doha beating the likes of China's Asian Games champion Wang Chunyu and Kazakhstan's former two-time Asiad winner Margarita Mukasheva. It was the first time an Indian had won gold in the women's 800m event in the competition.
After her gold medal win, Tamil Nadu political parties- ruling AIADMK, DMK, and state Congress- offered monetary support to her. The social media, the mainstream media, and the political parties celebrate her achievement. Gomathi's gold medal clinch in Doha earned her fame overnight because she had to fight against poverty to become an athlete.
However, doping snatched all from her now just after a year of that mind-boggling achievement.
