Two Russian weightlifters have been banned for doping, in a further hit to the credibility of both Russian sport and weightlifting ahead of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Former European under-23 champion, Alexei Selyutin was banned for four years and Russian national champion Yekaterina Vlasova for 18 months, the Russian anti-doping agency says, citing the Russian
weightlifting federation.
While Selyutin and Vlasova were unlikely to make the Russian team for Rio, their bans are a further blow for Russian weightlifting, which already risks being barred from the Olympics altogether for numerous earlier doping cases.
Weightlifting is also in the grip of a global doping crisis after many medallists from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics failed retests of their samples.