You'll be shocked by how different this photo from the 2012 Olympics is when you remove the drug cheats
As the drip-feed of failed drugs tests continues in the years after Olympics past, it’s hard to visualise how the races would look without any suspicion of cheating, .
Only yesterday the news emerged that four more Russian athletes had been found guilty of doping at the 2012 Games, taking the total sanctioned from that country alone to 34.
So as the historical failed drugs tests mount, what would a clean race even look like?
One running website decided to find the answer by photoshopping an image of the now infamous women’s 1500m final to remove those implicated by doping.
Citius Mag removed the doped-up Turkish one-two of Asli Cakir Alptekin and Gamze Bulut, with Bahrain’s Maryam Yusuf Jamal the new gold-medal winner in the dramatically different image.
Left: London 2012 women's 1,500m final
— CITIUS MAG (@CitiusMag) March 30, 2017
Right: An attempt to photoshop out anyone ever implicated in doping
More: https://t.co/fhzng2GjBA pic.twitter.com/GJV9sQCHRJ
No wonder Morgan Uceny, who fell entering the final lap, tweeted yesterday: “If I had jogged the 2012 Olympic 1500m final...I would have avoided a fall and probably still medaled once the dopers were caught. #sad”.
If I had jogged the 2012 Olympic 1500m final...I would have avoided a fall and probably still medaled once the dopers were caught. #sad
— Morgan Uceny (@MUceny) March 30, 2017
Her American compatriot Shannon Rowbury told VICE last year that she cried after crossing the line in sixth: “As soon as I finished the race, I had an awful feeling. I knew something just wasn't right about that competition and how it had played out. It was a sense of helplessness.
“I was sobbing for five or ten minutes, maybe more, in the middle of the Olympic ring with people walking all around me. I was so upset. I knew there was something not right about that race.”
Jamal now looks set to receive the gold medal. The silver upgrade would go to Russian Tatyana Tomashova, who previously served a ban between 2007 and 2011 for manipulating drug samples, and former Ethopian runner Abeba Aregawi, who tested positive for meldonium in January 2016, is in line to take bronze.
