Olive Loughnane set to enjoy belated golden moment after Olga Kaniskina ban

Olive Loughnane looks set to be awarded the gold medal for the 20km race walk from the 2009 World Championships in Berlin after Russia’s Olga Kaniskina was yesterday banned by the Russian Anti-doping Agency for an anti-doping rule violation.

“It all happened so quickly,” said Loughnane. “In the space of lunchtime I went from having a silver medal to hopefully having gold.

“I don’t know how it’s going to pan out now but the reality of it is the Russians have come out and said she was dirty in that race so I was the fastest on the day. It doesn’t matter what they can’t take that away from me.”