Doping-Russian former weightlifting world champion Kashirina suspended - report

[December 21, 2020]    (Reuters) - Russia's five-times world champion weightlifter and Olympic medallist Tatiana Kashirina has been temporarily suspended for an anti-doping rule violation, Russian news agency TASS reported on Sunday.

Russia's Tatiana Kashirina competes in the women's +75kg group A clean and jerk weightlifting competition at the ExCel venue during the London 2012 Olympic Games August 5, 2012. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (BRITAIN - Tags: OLYMPICS SPORT WEIGHTLIFTING)

Kashirina, who won silver at the 2012 Olympics and five gold medals at the world championships between 2010 and 2018, was one of the favourites for a gold medal at next year's Tokyo Games. The report said Kashirina, 29, was suspended after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) took results of doping tests of Russian athletes between 2012 to 2015 from the Moscow Laboratory during an investigation. She previously served a two-year suspension from 2006-08 for violating anti-doping rules and her latest ban will prevent her from competing during the Games qualification period which runs until April, 2021. Kashirina would have had to compete as a neutral as Russian athletes remain barred from major international events, including the Olympics, under the country's flag until 2022. A Swiss court upheld doping sanctions on Russia this week but halved the original four-year WADA ban. (Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru, editing by Ed Osmond) [© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.