IOC once again changed the order of the 800 metres final from London 2012: Pamela Jelimo receives silver, Alysia Montaño bronze
The International Olympic Committee has changed, more than thirteen years after the final held at the Olympic Stadium in London, the official order of the women’s 800 metres race from the 2012 Olympic Games. On 22 June 2026, the IOC Executive Board approved the reallocation of the Olympic medal, diploma and medallist pin after, according to the IOC announcement, the legal remedies connected with the disqualification of Yekaterina Poistogova, today Ekaterina Guliyev, had been exhausted. That decision is the final institutional step in a process that confirmed that the result of the athlete who competed for Russia in London can no longer remain in the Olympic records. In practical terms, Kenyan athlete Pamela Jelimo should now receive the silver medal, the diploma for second place and the silver medallist pin, while American athlete Alysia Montaño will be promoted to third place and receive the bronze medal, the diploma for third place and the bronze medallist pin. According to the same decision, Burundi’s Francine Niyonsaba receives the diploma for fourth place, and Kenya’s Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei the diploma for fifth place.
This is one of the longest and most complex retrospective corrections of results from the London Games, at which women’s middle-distance athletics races have for years been the subject of doping proceedings and revisions. The 800 metres final was held on 11 August 2012, and in the original order the first across the finish line was Russian Mariya Savinova, ahead of South Africa’s Caster Semenya, Guliyev, then under the surname Poistogova, Jelimo and Montaño. Subsequent proceedings completely changed that order: Savinova lost the gold in 2017 because of doping, after which Semenya became the Olympic champion, Guliyev was moved to silver, and Jelimo to bronze. The IOC’s new decision now changes the lower part of the podium again because Guliyev is removed from the order, so Jelimo moves up one more place, and Montaño enters the ranks of Olympic medallists after more than a decade.
New official distribution of honours after the decision of the IOC Executive Board
According to the IOC statement, the reallocation of Olympic medals is not an automatic consequence of every disqualification, but a decision that the Executive Board makes on a case-by-case basis. The IOC states that such a procedure is carried out only when all legal proceedings have been completed and when there are no more open legal remedies for the sanctioned athletes or their teams. In this case, the appeal against the decision made at first instance was dismissed on 23 May 2025, which, according to the IOC, made the decision final and binding. After that, World Athletics changed the competition ranking, and the IOC was able to decide on the new distribution of medals, diplomas and medallist pins. The organisation also stated that no anti-doping obstacle had been established for the athletes who move up in the ranking that would prevent the awarding of honours.
The new medal order in the 800 metres race thus becomes Caster Semenya in first place, Pamela Jelimo in second and Alysia Montaño in third place. Niyonsaba is, according to the IOC decision, fourth, and Busienei fifth, while the final official ranking of the race, as the IOC describes it after all disqualifications, has been reduced to five athletes. This is a consequence of the fact that three Russian athletes had already previously been disqualified from the same final race: Mariya Savinova, Elena Arzhakova and now Yekaterina Poistogova, that is Ekaterina Guliyev. A usual Olympic final had eight competitors, but after multiple anti-doping decisions the official final ranking was significantly shortened. Such an outcome underlines the scale of doping consequences that extended far beyond the moment of the race itself.
World Athletics states in the result records of the final that Semenya ran 1:57.23, Jelimo 1:57.59, Montaño 1:57.93, Niyonsaba 1:59.63, and Busienei 2:00.19. In the original crossing of the finish line, Guliyev was ahead of Jelimo with a time of 1:57.53, but that result is now no longer taken into account for the medal ranking. The same record shows that Savinova and Arzhakova had already been marked with disqualification, while the IOC stated in the latest decision that World Athletics changed the relevant results after the final confirmation of the sanction for Guliyev. For the athletes who now move up, the change is not only statistical: the medal and diploma are part of official Olympic status, but also of the historical recognition of a result that at the actual moment of the competition was not rewarded on the podium.
The Guliyev case: from the London podium to final disqualification
The Athletics Integrity Unit, the independent integrity body in athletics that operates within World Athletics, announced on 6 June 2025 that the Court of Arbitration for Sport had dismissed Ekaterina Guliyev’s appeal against the sanction connected with a violation of anti-doping rules. According to the AIU, CAS confirmed the disqualification of her results from 17 July 2012 to 20 October 2014, which directly includes the Olympic 800 metres final in London. The AIU announcement stated that the case was based on evidence from the McLaren investigation and the LIMS system, that is, data connected with the Moscow anti-doping laboratory. CAS, according to the AIU, concluded that World Athletics had proved a violation of the 2012 rules connected with the use of the prohibited substances ATD and boldenone. Guliyev competed in London as Yekaterina Poistogova for Russia, and the AIU states that today she represents Turkey.
The dispute legally extended through several phases because samples taken on 17 and 25 July 2012 were negative at the time of collection, while World Athletics only later, on the basis of new investigative evidence, notified the athlete of a possible anti-doping rule violation. According to the AIU, Guliyev argued that the proceedings could not be conducted again because the earlier case had already been the subject of a CAS decision from 2016, after which a two-year sanction was imposed on her. World Athletics, according to the same statement, responded that the new case was based on significant evidence that had not been available in the previous proceedings. The CAS panel accepted the majority argument that there was no obstacle between the earlier and later proceedings that would prevent a new decision. Such an outcome shows how anti-doping proceedings can develop years after a competition, especially when new forensic data, laboratory databases or evidence from a wider investigation appear.
The AIU also stated that the consequences of the decision do not relate only to the Olympic race, but also to a series of other Guliyev results from the period covered by the disqualification. According to the statement, among the results that are to be annulled are appearances at Diamond League meetings, IAAF World Challenge competitions and European competitions, including victories in Düsseldorf and Birmingham in 2013, appearances in Oslo and Rabat in the same year, and victory at the Zagreb IAAF World Challenge in September 2013. The AIU described the case as part of broader work on cases arising from the Russian doping scandal. For international athletics, this means that an archived result can remain subject to change as long as there are legal and evidentiary grounds for proceedings.
The final that lost three finalists because of doping
The London 800 metres final is especially striking because three athletes from the same race ended with disqualification for anti-doping reasons. Mariya Savinova, the original winner, lost the title after proceedings that led to Caster Semenya being recognised as the Olympic champion. Elena Arzhakova was also disqualified, and the new decision related to Guliyev has further changed what for years had been considered the final ranking. According to the IOC’s latest announcement, precisely because of these disqualifications the final ranking of the race, as confirmed by World Athletics for the purposes of the medal decision, includes only five athletes. It rarely happens that an Olympic final in one discipline changes so much after official anti-doping proceedings, and this case remains an example of how long the consequences of systemic irregularities can last.
For Caster Semenya, the change from 2017 had already meant a move from silver to gold, while Pamela Jelimo then moved from fourth place in the original finishing order to bronze. Jelimo has now been moved again, this time to the silver position, so her Olympic status from London is changing for the second time. Alysia Montaño, who crossed the finish line fifth, now becomes a bronze Olympic medallist. Niyonsaba and Busienei do not receive medals, but they receive higher official diplomas, which in the Olympic system is formal recognition of placements immediately below the podium. In athletic biographies and statistics, such changes have lasting value because they affect the athletes’ status, national records, historical overviews and institutional recognition of careers.
This decision also reminds us that the order seen in the stadium is not always the final truth of a sporting competition. At the moment of the final, spectators saw a tactical race completed in less than two minutes, but the formal resolution of its consequences lasted more than a decade. For the athletes who competed without established anti-doping violations, subsequent recognition cannot fully make up for the lost moment of stepping onto the Olympic podium, the absence of the ceremony and the effect a medal can have on a career while the athlete is still active. Nevertheless, the IOC emphasises in the rules of medal reallocation that the aim of the process is to recognise clean athletes and enable them to receive a dignified presentation. In that sense, the London case is not only a legal correction but also a late institutional recognition of a sporting result.
The wider anti-doping context of London 2012 and the Russian investigation
The Guliyev case is connected with evidence that arose from one of the most extensive anti-doping investigations in international sport. The World Anti-Doping Agency announced in 2016 that the second part of the McLaren investigation had once again confirmed institutionalised manipulation of doping controls in Russia. According to WADA, the report focused on the number of female and male athletes who benefited from such manipulation, while later cases before athletics and sports tribunals used data from laboratory systems and supporting evidence. In the Guliyev case, the AIU stated that the scheme included so-called “washout” testing, that is, a procedure by which athletes could assess in advance whether they would test positive at a competition. The AIU statement highlighted that such a practice was used before the 2012 Olympic Games in London, placing the case at the centre of the broader problem of systemic protection of doped athletes.
Additional context is also provided by the International Testing Agency, which states that the IOC launched the programme of reanalysis of samples from London before the Rio Games in 2016. According to the ITA, in the context of investigations into systemic manipulation of the Russian anti-doping system, more than 500 reanalyses of samples from London were carried out, while the overall reanalysis programme covered 2,727 samples. The ITA states that this programme led to 73 anti-doping rule violations and to the withdrawal of 31 and the reallocation of 46 Olympic medals. These data show that the Guliyev case is not an isolated administrative change, but part of a long-lasting process of cleaning up the results of one Olympic Games. London 2012 therefore remains a reference point in discussions about the limits of retrospective testing, the storage of samples and the possibility that sporting justice may be carried out years after the end of a competition.
For the anti-doping system, the fact that testing methods and evidentiary tools change faster than official sporting records is particularly important. Samples that were negative at the time of competition can, with new methods or additional investigative data, become part of later proceedings. This opens complex questions about limitation periods, legal certainty and the protection of the integrity of competition, but at the same time gives sporting bodies a mechanism for correcting results when convincing evidence of rule violations appears. The IOC, World Athletics, AIU and ITA acted in this case in different phases of the same chain: from proving the violation, through changing the results, to the final decision on medals and diplomas. For the athletes affected by this outcome, the final step still has to be symbolically completed through the manner in which the reallocated medals will be presented.
What follows for Jelimo and Montaño
According to the IOC rules on medal reallocation, athletes to whom a medal has been awarded retrospectively may be offered a choice of how to receive the honour, with the support of the IOC, the national Olympic committee and the relevant international federation. The options listed by the IOC include a ceremony at a location connected with future Olympic Games, a presentation at the Olympic Museum, a ceremony at a world or continental championship, an event organised by the national Olympic committee or a private presentation. The IOC states that such a ceremony is generally organised within 12 months of the decision of the Executive Board, unless the athlete chooses the available option of receiving the medal at the next relevant Olympic Games. At present, it has not been officially announced where Pamela Jelimo and Alysia Montaño will receive their new honours. Their choice will be important because it will determine whether the late recognition will take place in a public Olympic setting or in a more intimate, personal format.
For Jelimo, the Olympic champion from Beijing 2008 over the same distance, the London medal now gains even greater weight because it turns from bronze into silver. For Montaño, the recognisable American middle-distance runner, the decision means entry into the official circle of Olympic medallists after years of waiting and public discussions about the damage that doping causes to clean athletes. Although the medal is awarded retrospectively, it changes the official record of a career and remains a permanent part of Olympic statistics. At the same time, the case confirms that the consequences of doping do not stop with the athlete who broke the rules, but extend to competitors, the audience, national federations and the historical memory of the competition. For that reason, the IOC’s latest decision on the 800 metres race from London 2012 remains much more than an administrative change to a results table: it is a late attempt to bring the result closer to what the competition should have shown at the moment when it was held.
Sources:
- International Olympic Committee – decision of the Executive Board on the reallocation of medals, diplomas and medallist pins for the 800 metres race from London 2012. (link)
- Athletics Integrity Unit – statement on the dismissal of Ekaterina Guliyev’s appeal and the consequences for the Olympic medal from London 2012. (link)
- Athletics Integrity Unit – record of CAS appeal decisions, including the case Ekaterina Guliyev against World Athletics. (link)
- World Athletics – results of the women’s 800 metres final at the London 2012 Olympic Games. (link)
- International Testing Agency – report on the programme of reanalysis of samples from the London 2012 Olympic Games. (link)
- World Anti-Doping Agency – statement on the conclusions of the second part of the McLaren investigation into manipulation of doping controls in Russia. (link)
- IOC Athlete365 – principles and procedure for the reallocation of Olympic medals. (link)