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Tyler Hamilton formally disqualified from 2004 Olympics, TT gold to Ekimov

Bobby Jullich steps up to silver while Michael Rogers become latest Team Sky rider to get an Olympic medal

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that it has formally disqualified American cyclist Tyler Hamilton from the events he competed in at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, in which he won a gold medal in the time trial. That will now be awarded to Viatcheslav Ekimov of Russia, his former team mate at US Postal Service.

Hamilton had tested positive for a blood transfusion during the 2004 Olympics but an error resulted in his B sample being frozen meaning that no further action could be taken. The following month, however, he failed another doping control while competing in the Vuelta and was banned for two years. A further positive test in 2009 resulted in him receiving an eight-year ban.

Last year, appearing on the CBS 60 Minutes television show, he confessed to having used performance enhancing drugs during his career. That programme focused on allegations regarding doping at US Postal, which was then the subject of a US Federal Grand Jury investigation, shelved earlier this year.

Hamilton, aged 41, wrote to the IOC in June to formally offer to return the gold medal he had won. For Ekimov, it will be his third Olympic gold – he had won the individual pursuit in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and 12 years earlier had been a member of the Soviet Union’s victorious team pursuit squad at Seoul.

The reallocation of the medals has been confirmed just weeks before an eight year limitation regarding amendments to Olympic results was due to come into force at the end of this month which would have made it impossible for the Athens results to be changed.

In what could end up being one of the more fiendish of cyling trivia questions in years to come, Hamilton’s disqualification means that a sixth Team Sky rider, besides Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Rigoberto Uran, Geraint Thomas and Peter Kennaugh, has clinched an Olympic medal in the past fortnight.

That man is former world time trial champion Michael Rogers of Australia who finished fourth in the time trial at Athens and now receives the bronze medal. He won’t have far to look for it, either – that medal was won by the American Bobby Jullich, now a race coach at Team Sky, who himself gets awarded the silver medal from the 2004 Games.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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1961BikiE | 11 years ago
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Have to agree with monty dog. This to me is the problem of reshuffling the result. Hard to prove now but the level of suspicion now levelled at USPS riders (and of course others riding at that time) makes this a little hard to take.

Personally I think the result should just be annulled, though I'm sure that the IOC and organisers of other events are adamantly against having results gaps.

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monty dog | 11 years ago
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So they award it to a USPS rider - hardly a demonstration of 'cleaning up' the legacy is it?

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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Taken their time, He returned the medal in May 2011

Just looking at the result from 2004, so other riders, Vino, Ullrich, Santiago Botero (maybe) and Igor González de Galdeano......Dopers.

Not the first time Rogers has been upgraded either, in 2003 he was runner up to David Millar in the world TT, then get the rainbow because Millar doped.

ALSO, you might wanna edit part of your report, It wasn't pursuit gold Ekimov won in 2000, It was the TT, So it means he won back to back TT's now 00 and 04  3

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