Featherweight (≤53 kilograms), Women

Thailand’s Junpim Kuntatean had won a silver medal at the 2005 World Championships and at the 2006 Asian Games. She then visited a fortune teller who told her she could win an Olympic gold medal if she would change her name. Unfortunately for the world’s media, she chose the name Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon, which meant “Good Girl Prosperous” in Thai. In Beijing she tied for the lead in the snatch with Belarussian Anastasiya Novikova, but Jaroenrattanatarakoon won the gold medal with her first clean & jerk of 120.0 kg, but then lifted 126.0 kg. Novikova lost the silver medal to Korean Yoon Jin-Hee based on lower bodyweight.

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 October 2016 Anastasiya Novikova (BLR) had a re-test positive for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone) and stanozolol. She was disqualified and lost her bronze medal, which was re-assigned to Indonesian Raema Lisa Rumbewas.