Kyrgyz Weightlifter To Appeal Doping Ban

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th August, 2016) : Kyrgyz weightlifter Izzat Artykov said Friday he will appeal the verdict that stripped him of his Olympic medal over doping use, accusing a French competitor of putting a strychnine steroid in his drink. "I suspect that the French weightlifter mixed doping into my drinks or food," said Artykov, who won the bronze medal in the 69kg contest and had since returned to ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan.

"Of course I will appeal the decision," he told AFP of the Court of Arbitration for Sport Thursday ruling. "It's not fair." "I have never doped. I claimed my victory honestly," Azzat told AFP by telephone.

"I am in shock at this decision." Artykov, 22, won the country's only medal at Rio in the August 9 contest. The International Olympic Committee informed him three days later that he had tested positive for the strychnine steroid in urine samples. His medal was reallocated to Colombia's Luis Javier Mosquera. Kyrgyzstan's agency for youth and sports said Friday that the country's weightlifting federation is "preparing an appeal" over the decision on Artykov, who became the first sportsman to be deprived of a medal for doping at this year's Games.

The French weightlifter Artykov referred to, Bernardin Kingue Matam, had immediately cast doubt over the legitimacy of the 69kg contest after finishing eighth. "If the international federation and the International Olympic Committee do their job properly, I should go up at least four places because the top five are not clean," he alleged. Weightlifting has been among the sports most thoroughly tainted by the global doping scandal that has cast a shadow over the games in Rio.

The International Weightlifting Federation's chief Tamas Ajan told AFP Wednesday that Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus would all face one-year bans from the sport after Rio. While the strychnine drug Artykov tested positive for is used as a rat poison, it is also a stimulant that has been used for more than a century in sport, including the Olympics.