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On March 22, local time, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport announced that the Rio Olympics men's weightlifting 77 kg champion and Kazakhstani weightlifter Nidzat Rasimov will be banned for 8 years for taking banned drugs, canceling all his results from March 15, 2016 to January 18, 2021. This means that Chinese weightlifter Lu Xiaojun will win the gold medal in the Rio Olympic Games, and the "God of War" will become the fifth "triple champion" in the history of Olympic weightlifting.
Although the Olympic gold medal has not yet arrived, Lu Xiaojun is extremely pleased and has given him a new idea for the Paris Olympic Games two years later, "I am particularly happy now, this gold medal and the 'triple crown' are rewards for me, an old athlete who has dedicated his life to weightlifting, and I am looking forward to this gold medal." I have confidence in the Paris Olympics, but I know it's going to be a tough, tough preparation process. I don't want to easily promise anything until everything becomes clear. But to be sure, I am now eagerly awaiting my return to the national team. ”
It has to be said that the duel between Lu Xiaojun and Rasimov at the Rio Olympics was one of the most famous and controversial weightlifting competitions in Olympic history. At that time, as the defending champion and the world record holder for the men's 77 kg overall weightlift, Lu Xiaojun was the deserved king, and as the overall champion of the 2015 Houston World Championships, Rakhimov was Lu Xiaojun's biggest competitor. In the competition, Lu Xiaojun played a normal level, grabbing 177 kg, deadlift 202 kg, and the total result of 379 kg was very good. Just when the outside world thought that this gold medal was already in the bag, a scene that shocked the world occurred. In the final move of the competition, Kazakhstan's Rasimov chose to challenge the weight of 214 kg when the overall result was 12 kg behind, and the men's 77 kg deadlift world record at that time was 210 kg, which had been held for 15 years. In the end, Rasimov impressively successfully lifted the barbell, and with the same overall result as Lu Xiaojun, he took the gold medal by virtue of his lighter weight than Lü Xiaojun.
After that match, Egypt's Ehab, who won the bronze medal, made his attitude on the spot, "I hope it's a 100% clean game." I feel like after a doping test, the medal winners may change. Rasimov had been banned for two years before (2013) for drug use, and it was never possible to recover in such a short period of time and lift so much weight. ”
But Rasimov adamantly denied this claim, "I'm clean and don't care what people say." I would say that my success comes from strong conviction and rigorous training. Alexei Ni, then head coach of the Kazakhstan weightlifting team, said, "Yes, he never lifted this weight, nor did he do it in training, but the boy was very aggressive." We need a man to go crazy with the performers. ”
It is worth mentioning that although the defending title was lost, after the game, Lu Xiaojun still generously praised this opponent in front of the camera, "He lifted this weight, I don't care if I won the gold medal, he lifted it, very good!" But what is less known is that at that time, Lu Xiaojun and Rasimov also met again at the Tokyo Olympics four years later, because he was unwilling to lose. However, at the Tokyo Olympics last year, when Lu Xiaojun became the oldest weightlifting champion in olympic history at the age of 37, Rakhimov, who had been banned, was struggling to save his career.
Truth-seekingly, Rakhimov is indeed a talented athlete, born in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, who has represented Azerbaijan in international competitions on several occasions and became the champion of the Singapore Youth Olympics in 2010. However, in June 2013, Rakhimov was suspended for two years for testing positive for doping, and then he had a conflict with the coach and was naturalized in Kazakhstan in 2014. In September 2015, Rasimov returned to the rio Olympics with his suspension. Notably, he lifted a total weight of 379 kilograms, 39 kilograms higher than his previous best, and since then, he has competed in various competitions until December 2019, and the best result he cited was also 35 kilograms less than the Rio Olympics.
It is worth mentioning that compared with the first time he was banned for drug use, the reasons for Rasimov's ban were more sufficient, and after DNA testing, the International Doping Agency (ITA) found that the three urine samples provided by Rasimov on March 15, June 10 and July 16, 2016 were not from Rasimov himself, and 25 days after the last urine collection, he staged the sensational performance in Rio.
In 2021, the International Weightlifting Federation issued a statement confirming Rasimov's doping testing violations, and he subsequently appealed to the International Court of Arbitration for Sport, stressing that "during and before the Olympic Games, I passed the test, found no violations, and there are still some problems left to me 5 years later, which is unfair." But now, with the final ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport banning the game for eight years, Rasimov's career will come to an end.
Now, perhaps many people wonder why what happened years ago has not been brought out until now. And that started with the documentary "Secret Doping – The King of Weightlifting" that aired on German television in January 2020. The documentary reveals the IAF corruption scandal and points the finger at the then president of the FFA, the Hungarian Tamas Agen. "In the International Federation of Lifters, a team led by Agen would tamper with athletes' doping test samples and even arrange for athletes from 'paying' countries to bypass doping tests," the documentary states. "The countries named in the film include Kazakhstan.
Tamas Agen of Hungary, then President of the International Federation of Jubilants
Three months after the documentary aired, Agen, who had served as secretary general and president of the International Federation for 44 years, was forced to resign as president, and a vigorous anti-corruption and anti-counterfeiting campaign began. Rasimov's investigation was a follow-up to the World Anti-Doping Agency's investigation into doping violations by the International Federation.
In fact, before Rasimov, Kazakhstan weightlifting also had gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the 2012 London Olympic Games. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the only gold medal for the Kazakhstan weightlifting team came from their star player, Ealing, who won the gold medal in the men's 94 kg final with a snatch of 180 kg, a deadlift of 226 kg and a total of 406 kg. Four years later, at the London Olympics, Ealing defended the event, with three women's players Zulfia, Maneza and Portobedova also winning three gold medals. However, all five gold medals were eventually withdrawn in 2016 because none of the doping test samples left by the champions failed to pass the retest. Today, with Rasimov's performance canceled, Kazakhstan has lost all 6 Olympic weightlifting gold medals.
It is worth mentioning that from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to the 2016 Rio Olympics, the head coach of the Kazakhstan weightlifting team is Alexei Ni, and since he began to serve as the head coach of the Kazakhstan national weightlifting team in 1994, this originally unknown team has gradually begun to emerge in Asia and even the international arena. However, looking back at the development history of Weightlifting in Kazakhstan over the past decade, it is not difficult to find that at the same time as their increasingly amazing competitive results, there is also a series of drug ban scandals.
Alexei Ni, then head coach of the Kazakhstan weightlifting team
In Kazakhstan, Olympic champions can receive a three-bedroom apartment, a car, and a cash prize of $250,000, but as doping scandals mount, in September 2019, the Kazakh parliament approved a bill to strengthen doping penalties, in addition to pursuing administrative responsibilities and fines for coaches and staff who persuaded athletes to use doping, the athletes involved will return all previous monetary and material rewards and be disqualified from being selected for the national team. Now, Rasimov has been duly punished, and the gold medal that belongs to Lu Xiaojun is finally expected to be lost.