DOPING IN SPORT

Spanish athlete Marta Domnguez stripped of world

gold for doping
Court of Arbitration for Sport also hands three-year ban to track star-turned-PP politician
CARLOS ARRIBAS

Madrid

13

19 NOV 2015 - 19:16 CET

Marta Domnguez competes in the 3,000m steeplechase at the London Olympics in 2012.
/REUTERS

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Spanish former athlete Marta Domnguez has been handed a three-

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year ban and stripped of her 2009 World Championship gold medal

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after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found her guilty of
doping.
The decision by the Lausanne-based court, which was made public
on Thursday, closes a case begun in March 2013 after irregularities
were detected in Domnguezs biological passport.
As well as the ban and the loss of the 3,000m steeplechase title she
won in Berlin, at the request of the International Association of
Athletics Federations (IAAF), the 40-year-old has also been stripped
of the European Championship silver medal she won in Barcelona in
2010.

On Monday Domnguez suddenly disappeared from the list of PP

general election candidates for Madrid

Once considered the best Spanish female athlete in history,
Domnguez retired from high-level competition in 2012, and has
been devoting her time to politics ever since.
In November 2011 she was elected a senator for her home province
of Palencia, representing the center-right Popular Party (PP).
Despite the doping case hanging over her, Spanish Prime Minister
Mariano Rajoy recently decided to include her in 19th place on the
Madrid list of PP candidates for Congress at the upcoming December
20 general election.
But on Monday Domnguez suddenly disappeared from the list just
before it was due to be sent to the Madrid Electoral Board. The
former athlete had warned the party about the imminent release of
the sentence and of the convenience of her disappearing from the
scene.
This is the third doping case to which Domnguez has been linked
following the Operation Puerto and Operation Greyhound scandals.
She ended up facing no charges in the former, while the latter was
ultimately shelved.
The latest case began in March 2013
when the IAAF informed
Domnguez and the Spanish
athletics federation that it had found
suspicious blood values in her

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Spanish athletics federation

acquits Marta Domnguez in
doping probe

biological passport dating back to

Domnguez faces new

August 2009.

doping probe

As neither the athlete nor the

federation offered any convincing
explanation for the irregularities, the IAAF decided to open
disciplinary proceedings against her for doping that July, calling for a
four-year ban and a provisional suspension.
After Domnguez attributed the values to subclinical
hypothyroidism,the Spanish federation acquitted her in 2014. But the
IAAF appealed the decision to the CAS, which owing to her
defenses attempts to question the tribunals jurisdiction and contest

the chosen arbitrators was unable to organize a hearing until June

24 of this year.