On August 11, 2012, Pamela Jelimo walked away believing she had failed at the Olympics! She arrived in London as the defending Olympic champion from Beijing 2008. But in the women’s 800m final, Mariya Savinova, Ekaterina Poistogova, and Caster Semenya took the first three spots, while Jelimo faded to fourth place, and Alysia Montaño finished fifth. Both women left London without a medal. But now, 14 years later, justice has finally caught up. Following the CAS final hearing, Jelimo and Montaño have been elevated to medal positions after two of the original medalists were disqualified.

On 22 June, the IOC Executive Board confirmed the process in an official statement, saying: “The IOC Executive Board has taken the decision to reallocate Olympic medals from the London 2012 Olympic Games. Reallocation takes place only after all the remedies have been exhausted by the sanctioned athletes or teams, and once all procedures have been closed.”

The revised women’s 800m podium for London 2012 now stands as: Gold for Caster Semenya of South Africa, silver for Pamela Jelimo of Kenya, and bronze for Alysia Montaño of the United States.

The adjustments are due to investigations conducted in 2015 into the Russian state-sponsored doping system, which uncovered serious doping among Russian athletes. The largest case involved the original Olympic 800m champion, Mariya Savinova, who was disqualified after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in 2017 that she was guilty of anti-doping offences.

At that stage, the updated standings placed Caster Semenya first, Ekaterina Poistogova second, and Pamela Jelimo third, while Alysia Montaño remained just outside the medals. But the story did not end there.

Poistogova later became a Turkish citizen and competed for Turkey under the name Ekaterina Guliyev. She also faced more scrutiny from data on the anti-doping database of Russia (Operation LIMS) that showed use of banned substances linked to samples collected in July 2012. In 2024, the AIU disqualified her results from July 2012 to October 2014, in addition to imposing sanctions. Guliyev appealed this ruling, but in May 2025, the CAS dismissed her appeal and upheld the ban.

After all legal proceedings were concluded, World Athletics finalised new results and submitted them to the IOC for confirmation. The IOC has approved the reallocations, although the timing and format of medal presentation ceremonies have not yet been announced.

In past cases, reallocated Olympic medals have been presented during special ceremonies, including events around the Milano Cortina Winter Games, while athletes can also request their own preferred setting for receiving them. Even with the correction, the feeling around the result remains unfinished for Alysia Montaño.

Alysia Montaño and the medal she did not see in real time

After the 2012 Olympics, Alysia Montaño continued her career with strong domestic results. She won the USA Outdoor 800m national title in 2013. In 2014, she drew global attention when she competed at the US Track and Field Championships while eight months pregnant, a moment that went far beyond sport itself.

She continued to perform at a high level, winning another national title in 2015 and also earning a silver medal at the Pan American Games in Toronto the same year. She won six USATF 800m championships, with titles in 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015. In 2017, she competed while pregnant again, this time at five months, before stepping away from professional track and field the same year.

By then, her identity in the sport had grown beyond results, as she became widely known as the “Pregnant Runner.”

Despite all her accomplishments, one race never left her. It was the 2012 London Olympic final that had been with her throughout each season, each comeback, and every finish line.

When news of Guliyev’s disqualification surfaced in 2024, Alysia Montaño reflected on the long wait, saying: “2012, 12 years ago. A lot of loss. 3 podium moments that should have happened in real time that didn’t.” She also spoke about moving forward despite the delay: “There is also a lot I moved forward with by knowing deep down. I couldn’t let dopers win.”

Montaño has said she would like to receive her Olympic medal at the LA28 Games, hoping it brings closure in a place where the moment can finally be seen and felt the way it should have been in 2012.