India will get the silver medal in the women's 4x400m relay of the last Asian athletics championships following doping disqualifications of athletes from Kazakhstan and Iraq.
A scratch Indian combination of Korada Mridula, Jhuma Khatun, O.P. Jaisha and Tintu Luka had finished fourth and last in a poor 3:44.17 in the championships held in Kobe, Japan, last July. But disqualifications have helped the team push up to second.
Kazakhstan's two-time Asian Games champion and the 2007 World University Games champion in the 400 metres, Olga Tereshkova tested positive for testosterone while Iraq's Kolestane Mahmoud Ieso tested positive for stimulant methylhexaneamine in the Kobe meet.
Following their suspensions by their respective federations and disqualification of all results from July 8, 2011, the day Tereshkova took the individual gold and Ieso the silver in the Asian meet, the results will be amended.
India will take the silver behind Japan with no other team to claim the bronze. Kazakhstan had finished second and Iraq third in the original placings. India had to field a makeshift combination in the relay following the ‘positive' tests returned by six leading 400m runners last June-July as they were getting ready for the Kobe meet.
Following the disqualifications, China's Chen Jingwen, Sri Lanka's Chandrika Subashini and Japan's Chisato Tanaka will take the top three positions in the individual 400 metres in the Asian meet.
Tereshkova, who clocked an Asian-season-leading 52.37s at Kobe, and who has a personal best of 51.62s, recorded while winning the Universiade title in 2007, has been suspended for two years, ending August 17, 2013 while Ieso has been suspended for one year, up to October 31 this year. The 27-year-old Kazakh woman will also lose her bronze medal won in the Universiade at Shenzhen, China, in August last year.
