Super-Heavyweight (>75 kilograms), Women

Korea’s Jang Mi-Ran was the silver medalist in 2004 but had since won the last three World Championships. At each World meet, she had been tied on total by China’s Mu Shuangshuang, but won on lower bodyweight. Because they could only enter four female lifters in 2008, China elected not to add Mu to the Beijing squad, which left Jang as the overwhelming favorite. She confirmed that by lifting world records in the snatch (140.0 kg) and clean & jerk (186.0 kg) for a world record total of 326.0 kg, and a stunning victory margin of 49 kg over Ukrainian Olha Korobka. Jang continued to compete, winning the 2009 World Championships, and a bronze medal at the 2010 Worlds. She competed at the 2012 Olympics in London, placing fourth with a total of 289.0 kg, fully 37 kg less than she lifted in 2008. Korobka weighed 166.97 kg in Beijing, the heaviest female to ever compete at the Olympics.

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 original silver medalist Olha Korobka (UKR) tested positive for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), was disqualified, and lost her silver medal. A few weeks later original bronze medalist Mariya Grabovetskaya of Kazakhstan met a similar fate when her re-test sample was found to contain the cocktail of turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), oxandrolone, and stanozolol. Ele Opeloge of Samoa, who initially finished fourth, received the silver medal, while original fifth-place finisher Mariam Usman of Nigeria received the bronze medal. Opeloge’s silver medal was the first ever Olympic medal won by Samoa.