Lashinda Demus is the 2012 Olympic Champion in 400m hurdles

Lashinda Demus, the 2004 Olympian and the reigning world champion during the time, had missed the chance to participate at the 2008 Beijing Games by one spot at the Olympic Trials after giving birth to twins in June 2007.

Lashinda Demus at the London Olympics 2012 (Image Credits - Twitter)
By Abhiruchi Rout | Mar 31, 2023 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has ruled that American Lashinda Demus has been promoted from silver to gold in the 2012 Olympics 400m hurdles after the original gold champion was retroactively banned for doping. The announcement comes five months after the Russian Anti-Doping Agency retroactively removed Russian Natalya Antyukh’s winning times from July 2012 through June 2013. In the finals, she had defeated Demus by a mere seven-hundredths of a second in the original race.  Having last competed in 2016, Antyukh was already undergoing a four-year doping suspension and decided not to challenge the removal of her Olympic title.

Lashinda Demus’s performance at the Olympics and World Championships

Lashinda Demus, the 2004 Olympian and the reigning world champion during the time, had missed the chance to participate at the 2008 Beijing Games by one spot at the Olympic Trials after giving birth to twins in June 2007. Demus is a two-time World Championships gold and silver medalist and a one-time bronze medalist. Antyukh held off Demus in the Olympic 400m hurdles final in 2012, lowering her personal best by 22 hundredths of a second. “Of course, I wanted the gold medal; I will not stop until I get the gold medal,” Demus told Lewis Johnson on NBC after the race, voicing a desire to return for the 2016 Olympics (which she did not do after a series of injuries). At the time, Demus was the third-fastest woman in history in the event and the American record holder with a personal best of 52.47 seconds.

Read More-Two-time Olympian faces eight-year ban for doping and false documentation

How did Lashinda Demus react to the news?

Lashinda Demus showed mixed emotions about the news through an email after the October announcement of Antyukh’s disqualification. “I do believe that if, in fact, there was doping involved with anyone in the Olympics that they should be stripped of their medal. With everything being said it looks like this is the case for my race. I’m not afraid to say that I then deserve the official title, medal, recognition, and missed compensation that goes along with it all. I wouldn’t want any athlete to go through this same situation and I hope that keeping athletes honest in our sport stays at the forefront for those who sacrifice a good part of their life to be great at it.”

Demus has the option of receiving her medal which can be at the next Olympics, a USOPC ceremony, another international track and field event, or a private party. Demus becomes the first American woman to win an Olympic 400m hurdles title retrospectively. Two more American women –  Dalilah Muhammad won the event in 2016, while Sydney McLaughlin won it in Tokyo two years ago. At the 2012 Olympics, Russia initially took home eight gold medals in track and field. That number has now been reduced to one as a result of doping. The interval between Antyukh receiving an Olympic medal and it being stripped for doping may be the longest for the Summer Games since Lance Armstrong’s bronze medal in the Olympic cycling time trial in 2000 was stripped more than 12 years later. No other person received that medal.

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