Olive Loughnane knew golden moment would arrive

Almost seven years have passed, but Olive Loughnane can still see the way Olga Kaniskina looked at her in Berlin. 

The Russian had just beaten her into second place in the 20km race walk at the 2009 IAAF World Championships – with a significant boost from doping, it turned out – and as Loughnane stood tall on the podium, looking down at Kaniskina, there was just something about that look in her eyes.

“She was looking at me a bit dazed,” says Loughnane. “I don’t know if she was justifying [doping] by thinking everyone was doing it, or if she was looking at me going: ‘wow, she managed to do this without drugs.’”