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BSP-07
ASIAD-2018-DOPING-WRESTLING
Turkmen wrestler becomes first doping case at Asian Games
JAKARTA, Aug 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A wrestler from Turkmenistan became the
first doping case at the Asian Games and has been disqualified, the Olympic
Council of Asia said Friday.
Rustem Nazarov tested positive for the banned substance furosemide, a
masking agent, in a pre-tournament urine test last week, the OCA said.
Nazarov “has been disqualified from the 18th Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games
2018… and his results during the competition held on the 19th August
annulled”, a statement said.
The athlete, 24, had competed in the men’s 57kg freestyle event and was
defeated in his first match by India’s Sandeep Tomar.
Six athletes tested positive at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon including
South Korean swimming star Park Tae-hwan, who was stripped of his medals.
Other athletes from Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country, have failed
doping tests at major sporting events in recent years.
Weightlifter Umurbek Bazarbayev failed a drugs test at a world championship
event in the United States in 2015, and track athlete Yelena Ryabova tested
positive at the 2013 world athletics championships in Moscow.
Turkmenistan’s sports chiefs have been under intense pressure to deliver
success, following a public dressing down from the country’s President
Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov after coming home empty-handed from the Rio 2016
Olympics.
Berdymukhamedov publicly rebuked sports committee chief Kaakbay Seiidov for
failing to “justify the trust of the nation”, threatening to sack him if he
did not “increase the sporting authority of the fatherland”.
In 2012, Berdymukhamedov, who is a keen horseman, fired a previous sports
committee head after a similarly poor performance by the national team at the
London Olympics.
Oil-rich Turkmenistan, with a population of five million, has never won a
single Olympic medal, unlike its four neighbours in ex-Soviet Central Asia.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1212 hrs