(TibetanReview.net, Mar23’22) – Ms Choeyang Kyi (Chinese: Qieyang Shijie), 31, has on Mar 21 become the first Tibetan competing as Chinese to win an Olympic gold medal. She was initially declared the winner of the bronze medal in the women’s 20K race walk event at the London 2012 Olympic Summer Games.
However, after nearly 10 years, she has been declared the gold medal winner in her event after the two Russians who out-raced her were disqualified one after another after failing doping tests.
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Twitter on Mar 21 that Russian race walker Yelena Lashmanova had accepted the sanction proposed by it for the use of prohibited substances and that she had been stripped of her gold medals for the women’s 20K race walk event at the London 2012 Olympic Summer Games and the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, reported China’s official globaltimes.cn Mar 22.
Before that, Choeyang Kyi was awarded the silver medal after Russia’s Olga Kaniskina was disqualified in Mar 2016 for doping. And a later investigation into Lashmanova has proved that it was the Tibetan race walker who really earned the gold medal.
Choeyang Kyi has expressed both happiness and sadness at the latest turn of events in her Mar 21 posting on China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo.
“Ten years later, I welcomed the gold medal in this way. I felt both happy and sad when I heard the news. I am happy because I can be the champion I am in my heart and I can have an Olympic gold medal, while I am also regretful as I did not experience what an Olympic gold medalist should have experienced,” the report quoted her as saying.