With the ongoing fallout from the doping scandal in Russian athletics it looks increasingly likely that Loughrea AC’s Olive Loughnane will be belatedly awarded 1st position, a gold medal & title of World Champion for her efforts in the 20k Walk at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

Finishing in silver position on the day, 50 seconds behind Russia’s Olga Kaniskina, the Cork native was delighted with her performance on the day but the now retired athlete can be proud of the fact that she is a world champion on merit even if the lateness of the news is bittersweet.

The news means the Republic of Cork now has two world champions after Robert Heffernan’s fantastic 50k walk gold in Moscow last year & indeed could have more medals on the way as Heffernan’s 4th position’s in the 2012 London Olympics & the 2010 World Championships come under review with the banning of Gold medallists, Sergei Kirdyapkin & Sergei Bakulin. The Russian walkers have been provisionally banned & their results from three different periods over the last decade have been annulled by RUSADA although their results during the Olympics & World Championships currently still stand. With such a chequered & unbelievable timeline the IAAF will surely investigate further with the possibility of bronze medals for Heffernan should additional malpractice be uncovered.

Reacting to the news of her own new title yesterday, Olive Loughnane took to twitter, declaring;

“Woke up with a silver, going to bed with prospect of gold. Darling daughter wondering if I get 2 hold on 2 the silver! Thanks so much ebody”

All at Athenry AC congratulate Olive on a well-earned title & hope it brings the enjoyment that her efforts over the years deserve. 

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Brilliant RTE Sport interview with Olive is located at the bottom of this link and is well worth the effort of clicking through.

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Irish Independent article on the latest Russian doping development is here.

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Partial Connacht Tribune article by Stephen Glennon is here and below:

FOUR-time Olympian, Galway’s Olive Loughnane looks set to become a World champion following the revelation this week that the Russian she finished second to in the women’s 20km walk at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin has been disqualified for doping.

A thrilled Loughnane has welcomed the news and expressed her delight that drug cheats like Russian Olga Kaniskina were now being “hunted down” in the sport. It has been revealed that of the 17 gold medals won by Russian walkers at the Olympics and Worlds in the last decade, 16 were captured by athletes banned for doping at some stage of their careers.

“It’s ridiculous,” exclaims the mother-of-two of that startling statistic. “Sure, it never made sense. You had this small little area and you had so many winning medals coming out of there. You could be really critical but the rest of us were not stupid either. It wasn’t that we were doing things wrong.

“Look, we always kind of knew. I was disillusioned after London because I felt it was getting away from the WADA, the World Anti Doping Agency. I was obviously privileged to have a medal but I didn’t think anyone else would get that chance because the Russians were dominating so much. It had come to the point where you couldn’t compete with them.”

However, she believes by outing the drug cheats, it will make it possible for clean athletes now to compete for medals and she hopes the news would be a source of encouragement to those honourable competitors working and training hard to reach the summit.

“In fairness, when I was competing, I always went with the attitude that, look, I have no control over what they do. I can only control what I can do. So, I always fought for every single place and it didn’t matter if it was 17th instead of 18th. That is what I did. That kind of stood to me because if I hadn’t fought so hard I might not be going from silver to gold.

“So, yeah, it is a positive development and for me, personally, obviously it is great. I was in the best case scenario going from silver to gold. I am not sure though I would be as charitable towards them if I was going from fourth to third and if I hadn’t stood on the podium.”