Thirteen years of waiting, fighting, and refusing to be silent — and now, finally, justice.
American middle-distance runner Alysia Montaño is set to receive her Olympic bronze medal from the London 2012 Games, more than a decade after crossing the finish line without one.
The delay wasn’t due to a poor performance — it was the direct result of one of the most widespread doping scandals in Olympic history.
Three Russian athletes have now been disqualified from the same event, and the ripple effects are finally reaching the women who deserved recognition all along.
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Three Disqualifications, One Rewritten Podium
The London 2012 women’s 800m final has been dramatically overhauled after a third Russian competitor was stripped of her results.
Yekaterina Poistogova — who now goes by Guliyev — was the latest to fall, disqualified for an anti-doping rule violation by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a first-instance decision dated March 28, 2024.
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Poistogova had originally finished second in the event, taking home silver. That medal is now gone.
Her appeal was dismissed on May 23, 2025, making the ruling final and binding — and setting the reallocation process in motion.
She wasn’t the first Russian removed from this race. Elena Arzhakova and Mariya Savinova had already been disqualified from the same event in earlier proceedings. Savinova, who crossed the finish line first that day, had her gold medal stripped after being found guilty of systematic doping.
Three Russians. Three disqualifications. One race that has been almost entirely rewritten.
The New Podium — 14 Years in the Making
World Athletics has officially confirmed the revised final standings for the London 2012 women’s 800m, and the updated ranking is a powerful reminder of what clean sport looks like.
The new results are as follows:
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- Gold: Caster Semenya (RSA) — previously awarded, unaffected
- Silver: Pamela Jelimo (KEN)
- Bronze: Alysia Montaño (USA)
- 4th Place: Francine Niyonsaba (BUR)
- 5th Place: Janeth Jepkosgei Busienei (KEN)
Due to the scale of the disqualifications, the official final ranking now comprises just five athletes.
Montaño will formally receive her bronze medal, third-place diploma, and bronze medallist pin. Jelimo will be upgraded to silver, also receiving her corresponding diploma and pin.
Alysia Montaño: The Athlete Who Never Stopped Fighting
For those who follow track and field closely, Montaño’s name is synonymous with resilience.
The California-born runner became a beloved figure in American athletics — known not just for her signature flower worn behind her ear during races, but for her fierce advocacy around clean sport, athlete rights, and gender equity in competition.
She competed at the London Games as one of the top 800m runners in the world, finishing fourth in a race she should have podiumed in. She knew it. The athletics community knew it. But the official results told a different story for years.
Montaño has been publicly vocal about the toll that doping takes — not just on podium placements, but on athletes’ careers, livelihoods, and emotional wellbeing. The years spent waiting for justice are years that can never be returned.
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Why It Took So Long
The reallocation of Olympic medals is never a quick process — and that’s by design.
According to the International Olympic Committee’s policy, medal redistribution is decided on a case-by-case basis and only occurs after all legal remedies have been fully exhausted by the sanctioned athlete or team.
In Poistogova’s case, that process stretched across multiple years — from the initial CAS ruling in early 2024 through to the final appeal dismissal in May 2025.
Only once every avenue of appeal has been closed, and no outstanding anti-doping concerns remain for the athletes moving up the rankings, can the IOC proceed with redistribution.
It’s a system designed to protect due process — but one that routinely forces clean athletes to wait years, sometimes over a decade, before they can hold the hardware they genuinely earned.
A Victory That Goes Beyond One Athlete
Montaño’s bronze isn’t just a personal milestone. It’s a symbol of something bigger.
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Kenya’s Pamela Jelimo — an Olympic gold medalist from Beijing 2008 and one of the most decorated 800m runners of her generation — will also finally receive the silver recognition that eluded her in London.
Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi, who would go on to become a global athletics star in her own right, moves to an official fourth-place finish.
For every woman on this revised start list, the record has been set straight.
The London 2012 women’s 800m final will forever be remembered as one of the most tainted races in Olympic history — but it will also be remembered as proof that the system, however slowly, can still deliver justice to the athletes who deserve it most.
