Canadian shot putter Dylan Armstrong has issued an emotional statement after news emerged that his wife Russian Olympian Evgeniia Kolodko tested positive for a banned substance.
2. Canadian shot putter Dylan Armstrong has issued an
emotional statement after news emerged that his wife
Russian Olympian Evgeniia Kolodko tested positive for a
banned substance.
This was after Russia's public sports channel Match TV
reported that hammer throw gold medalist Tatyana
Beloborodova and 2012 shot put silver medalist Kolodko
tested positive for prohibited substances from their A
samples. Evgeniia, the Russian shot putter, won the silver
medal in the shot put competition at the 2012 Olympic
Games in London and recorded her personal best of
20.48m. A few days back, the Russian Olympic Committee
(ROC) confirmed eight of its athletes have registered
positive in doping retests for the 2012 London Games.
3. In the statement, Dylan said he learned earlier this week that Evgeniia
whom he met in 2012 and married in a private civil ceremony in
British Columbia Canada in September 2015 is among the eight
Russian athletes recently named by the International Olympic
Committee as testing positive for doping during the 2012 London
Olympics. Dylan added news of athlete doping is very disheartening
for competitive athletes who are committed to competing clean and
added he has never condoned doping in sport.
The Canadian shot putter born and raised in Kamloops said he knows
personally how disheartening it can be after waiting more than 6 years
after the 2008 Beijing to receive his Olympic bronze medal because of
the doping practices of a competitor. In 2008, Armstrong finished
fourth back and was just a centimeter behind bronze medalist Andrei
Mikhnevich of Belarus. Last August, the fourth-place finish was
upgraded to third after Mikhnevich was banned for life for a second
doping offence.