Turkish middle-distance runner is banned for eight years after a second doping offence

Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin has been banned for eight years and will lose her London 2012 Olympic 1500m title after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) approved a settlement agreed to by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the Turkish Athletic Federation (TAF) and the middle-distance runner.

The CAS announced the settlement agreement on Monday (August 17), stating that Cakir Alptekin is to serve an eight-year period of ineligibility, backdated to include the provisional suspension that she has served since January 10, 2013, with her ban set to end at midnight on January 9, 2021.

She will lose medals including her Olympic 1500m gold from the London 2012 Games as well as European 1500m gold from Helsinki in 2012 and world indoor 1500m bronze from Istanbul in 2012 as her results from July 29, 2010, are also disqualified.

This is Cakir Alptekin’s second anti-doping rule violation, the 29-year-old having already served a two-year doping ban after testing positive at the IAAF World Junior Championships in 2004.

This latest case went to CAS after the IAAF charged Cakir Alptekin with an anti-doping rule violation in January 2013 on the basis of her biological passport but TAF later cleared her of the doping charges. The IAAF then appealed that decision.

Finishing behind Cakir Alptekin at both the Olympic and European 1500m finals in 2012 was her team-mate Gamze Bulut.

A blog post from the editor of Athletics Weekly caused furore in 2012 as he debated whether the Turkish dominance of the women’s 1500m at the London 2012 Olympics was ‘delight or doubt’ after the Turkish one-two in the event was met with cynical indifference.

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