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Russia knocked off top of 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics table after being stripped of two gold medals

Aleksandr Zubkov won two gold medals at the 2014 games: Getty
Aleksandr Zubkov won two gold medals at the 2014 games: Getty

Russia have been knocked off the top of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics medal table after four athletes were found to have committed anti-doping violations at the games.

Bobsledders Olga Stulneva and Aleksandr Zubkov and speed skating duo Olga Fatkulina and Aleksander Rumyantsev were all disqualified from their respective events in which they participated, the International Olympic Committee Disciplinary Commission said on Friday.

Zubkov – who is now president of Russia’s bobsleigh federation – won gold in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh at the 2014 games in the bobsled while Fatkulina took the silver in the 500m speed skating. She also finished four in the 1000m discipline and ninth in the 1500m.

Stulneva finished ninth in the two-woman’s bobsleigh with Rumyantsev finishing 11th in the 5000m speed skating and 6th in the team pursuit.

The quartet’s samples given at Sochi were reanalysed by the IOC in order to further check for evidence of doping as well as separately determine if the samples themselves or the bottles they were carried in had been manipulated or tampered with.

The athletes were among the 28 Russians named in December 2016’s McLaren report, which the IOC subsequently opened proceedings against.

A total of 14 Russians have now been disqualified this month with nine medals lost. The stripping of the latest two golds and one silver leaves Russia on 24 medals in total, and only nine golds, leaving them fourth in the medal table behind the United States, Norway and Canada.