4 x 400 metres Relay, Women

The race was expected to be between the United States and Russia, with the US slight favorites. But the US sprinters had not performed well in Beijing, making this hard to call. Due to injuries, top US runner Sanya Richards was asked to run in the heats and there was concern that this would tire her for the final, where she would anchor. In the final, Yuliya Gushchina put Russia in the lead on the opening leg with 50.62, Jamaica second and the US third. Allyson Felix ran the second leg for the US, and blitzed a 48.55 lap to move slightly ahead of the Russians at the second changeover. Monique Henderson ran the third leg for the US and opened a big lead on the backstretch but Tatyana Firova caught her on the straightaway and pulled ahead by a few metres as she handed the baton to Anastasiya Kapachinskaya. Richards got the baton for the US 6/10ths down at the bell, with Jamaica another second back. Kapachinskaya opened the lead up even further on the backstretch and the US appeared to be too far behind. But on the final curve, Richards found another gear, and gradually starting closing the gap. She caught Kapachinskaya about 30 metres from the finish, but it was not over, as Kapachinskaya would not yield. But Richards held on to get the gold for the US by 0.28 seconds, with Jamaica winning the bronze medal.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

Russia originally received the silver medal, but two of their runners, Tatyana Firova and Anastasiya Kapachinskaya, both had positive re-tests for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), with Firova also testing positive for 3a-hydroxy-5a-androst-1-en-17-one, and Kapachinskaya throwing in a stanozolol chaser. The Russian team was disqualified, all runners losing their silver medal, with Jamaica moving up to the silver medal, and Great Britain receiving the bronze medal. Great Britain had originally finished only fifth, with Belarus fourth. However, Belarus was also disqualified after the re-test of Svetlana Usovich, who was positive for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone) in November 2016.

Firova was later quoted as saying, “We sportsmen are performers, we follow the rules that are given to us by the system. A normal person can take banned substances if they want to. So why can’t athletes take them as well? How else can we achieve high results?”