Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova-Collio is a five-time Olympian and one of Europe’s most decorated track & field athletes. In 2004, she tied with Irina Privalova as the sixth fastest woman in the 100m running a time of 10.77s. Later, she secured three European Championships medals (1 gold, 2 silver) and two European Indoor Championships medals (1 gold, 1 bronze). However, at age 41, her legacy is now under a dark cloud.

As reported by Citius Mag, “Bulgaria’s Ivet Lalova-Collio, a five-time European Championship medalist, has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for Osatrine in a re-testing of a 2016 sample, the Athletics Integrity Unity announced.”

The International Testing Agency (ITA) confirmed that Lalova-Collio, alongside six other athletes from different sports, has been informed about the results and has the right to request the testing of their “B” sample.

The athletes will also have the opportunity to give an explanation for the positive tests. But if she waives the test, the case will be referred to the Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS ADD) for adjudication.

This means that her results from the 2016 Rio Games, where she placed eighth in the 200m final, will be cancelled. Furthermore, any results, titles, medals, and prize money from the period after the sample was collected, which is August 17, 2016, would be forfeited. If the charges stick, it will impact the athlete in a major way.

Apart from damaging her reputation as an athlete, the two silver medals she won at the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam, just weeks before the Olympics in Rio, might be scratched from her record.

But this is far from the first time that athletes have tested positive during a retest years after their participation.

The other track and field athletes who have faced similar consequences

Testing positive in retests can arrive years after the competition ends. But the consequences remain the same! A prime example is Jamaican sprinter Nesta Carter, whose 2008 Beijing sample was reanalyzed and found to contain the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine nearly a decade later.

This belated positive test led to the disqualification of Jamaica’s entire gold medal-winning 4x100m relay team, which included legend Usain Bolt.

Tyson Gay faced a one-year suspension and was forced to return his 2012 Olympic relay silver medal after testing positive, which resulted in the disqualification of his results dating back to mid-2012.

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Then in 2017, Oleksandr Pyatnytsya and Denys Yurchenko of Ukraine were handed 2-year doping bans and had their medals in javelin and men’s pole vault, respectively, from the 2008 Olympics removed.

These cases only reinforce that there’s no hiding from modern anti-doping practices.