ANKARA
The Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has ratified a settlement agreement that will keep Turkish athlete Asli Cakir Alptekin out of any sport competition for eight years because of her doping offences.
According to the court’s release on its official website Monday, the agreement was reached between the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the respondents, the Turkish Athletics Federation and Alptekin.
According to the 13-page long settlement agreement, “this being Ms Cakir-Alptekin's second anti-doping rule violation, she shall serve a period of ineligibility of eight years.. she is given credit for the period of provisional suspension that she has served since January 10, 2013, so that this eight-year period of ineligibility shall be deemed to have expired at midnight on January 9, 2021”.
Moreover, it said: "All competitive results obtained by Ms Cakir-Alptekin from July 29, 2010, onwards are hereby disqualified, and all related titles, awards, medals, points, and prize and appearance money are forfeited."
This means that Alptekin has lost the gold medals she won in 2012 Summer Olympics in London, 2012 European Athletics Championships and 2011 Summer Universiade in Shenzhen, China. She has also lost her bronze medal that she won in the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul.
Alptekin’s gold medal will be given to her fellow citizen, Gamze Bulut who was the runner-up in the women's 1,500-meter run in London in 2012. Bahraini Meryem Yusuf Cemal will get the silver medal and the bronze medal will go to Russian Tatyana Tomashova.
Doping process
In March 2013, the international association IAAF requested the Turkish body TAF to impose penalties on its athlete after detecting abnormality in her biological pass. In December 2013, TAF announced that the Turkish athlete did not act improperly to the doping rules and there would not be a penalty against her. The IAAF then applied to the arbitration court in February 2014 to decide the case.
After the settlement, TAF Chairman Fatih Cintimar told Anadolu Agency: "The sports community and the athlete should understand that doping is not allowed.
"We have learnt that Asli was given an eight-year-ban and we are very sorry. Sports community and athletes should learn the lesson that any institution or federation will not be showing tolerance towards doping," Cintimar said.
He added that a "zero tolerance policy against doping" would be applied to leave a clean future in sports for the upcoming generations.
