Flyweight (≤48 kilograms), Women

Such was the Chinese dominance in this class that they had won the last three World Championships, but it was by three different lifters. Chen Xiexia was the champion in 2007, also winning the Asian Games that year, and came to Beijing as the heavy favorite. She dominated the class, as her starting lifts in both the snatch (90.0 kg) and clean & jerk (113.0 kg) were heavier than anything the other lifters managed during the competition. The defending champion, Turkey’s Nurcan Taylan, competed in Beijing but missed all three attempts in the snatch and was eliminated. She kissed the discs on the left side of her barbell as she left the lifting platform.

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. Of note, every women’s weightlifting event from the 2008 Beijing Olympics was affected by positive re-tests for PEDs.

In July 2016 silver medalist Sibel Özkan (TUR) tested positive for stanozolol, while in January 2017 gold medalist Chen Xiexia (CHN) tested positive for growth hormone releasing peptide (GHRP). Both were disqualified and lost their medals. Also testing positive was another Turkish lifter, Nurcan Taylan, who did not complete a valid lift. All medals were re-assigned in this event with original bronze medalist Chen Wei-Ling of Chinese Taipei receiving the gold medal, original fourth-place finisher Im Jeong-Hwa of Korea receiving the silver medal, and the original fifth-place finisher Pensiri Laosirikul of Thailand moving up to a bronze medal.