2016 Olympic champion weightlifter disqualified for doping

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Olympic weightlifting champion Nijat Rahimov has been stripped of his 2016 gold medal and banned for eight years for doping. The Court of Arbitration for Sport says the Kazakh lifter was guilty of “four urine substitutions.” He was disqualified from all his results since March 2016. Rahimov’s world record at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics was controversial even at the time. He had served a previous ban for doping while competing for Azerbaijan. Rahimov’s integrity was publicly doubted by bronze medalist Mohamed Mahmoud of Egypt. Mahmoud should now get silver with the gold going to Lyu Xiaojun of China.