Middleweight, Freestyle (≤74 kg), Men

Russia’s Buvaysar Saytiyev had won the gold medal in this class in 1996 and 2004, and was a six-time World and six-time European Champion. His star had dimmed a bit, however, and he was not chosen for the 2007 World Championships, which were won by Makhach Murtazaliyev. Saytiyev and Murtazaliyev wrestled off for the spot at Beijing, won by Saytiyev. Saytiyev made it to the finals in Beijing, where he faced Uzbeki Soslan Tigiyev. Tigiyev won the first period but Saytiyev dramatically recovered to win the last two periods and the gold medal. At London in 2012 Tigiyev appeared to add a bronze medal to his Beijing silver, but he would be disqualified for a doping positive for methylhexaneamine. Saytiyev’s gold medal in Beijing made him the only Olympic wrestler to win three gold medals in the same class, but not consecutively.

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.

In October 2016, Soslan Tigiyev (UZB) was revealed to have a positive test for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), and was disqualified, losing his bronze medal. Belarussian Murad Gaydarov was upgraded to a silver medal while Romanian Ștefan Gheorghiță received the bronze medal. Tigiyev’s brother, Taymuraz Tigiyev, who competed for Kazakhstan, had also originally won a silver medal in 96 kg freestyle, but was also disqualified in October 2016 for turinabol. Soslan Tigiyev would later originally win a bronze medal in this class at London in 2012, but in November 2012, that was also removed when he also tested positive for turinabol.