Cavan para powerlifter Britney Arendse upgraded to bronze medal after doping violation by UAE athlete
Irish para powerlifter Britney Arendse has been upgraded to bronze from last year’s Asia-Oceania Open Championships after a doping violation by the original third-placer.
UAE athlete Haifa Naqbi has been hit with a six-month ban by the International Paralympic Committee after testing positive for a prohibited substance during last September’s championships in the Japanese city of Kitakyushu.
Arendse’s advancement means the Cavan lifter scored bronze-medal successes at senior level on top of her two junior wins at both of the continental championships she competed in during 2018.
She originally finished two kilograms behind Naqbi and outside the medals in the -73kg category in the overall Open competition in Kitakyushu, with lifters from outside Asia-Oceania allowed to compete against home athletes contesting their own continental championship.
But a post-competition urine sample provided by the Emirati returned an adverse analytical finding for the banned substance Clomifene, and its metabolite hydroxyclomifene, as well as tamoxifen metabolite 3-hydroxy-4-methoxy-tamoxifen.
The substance is included on the WADA Prohibited List for 2018 under the category of hormone and metabolic modulators.
Naqbi’s results from September 11, 2018, to March 10, 2019, have been annulled meaning she loses three bronze medals - from the Asia-Oceania Championships, the parallel Open Championship where Arendse has been upgraded, and the subsequent Asian Para Games in Jakarta.
Arendse set a junior world record lift of 98.5kg in the competition, which she went on to break in winning bronze at the Eger World Cup event in Hungary last April, lifting a full 100 kilograms.
Ahead of the event in Japan, the 19-year-old Tokyo Paralympics hopeful and team-mate Nicola Dore both won bronze at last summer’s European Championships in Berck-sur-Mer – with Arendse also being crowned European junior champion in the French coastal resort.
Both are in action at this week’s World Para Powerlifting Championships in Kazakhstan’s capital Nur-Sultan, where Arendse received her upgraded bronze medal from the world governing body.
