3,000 metres Steeplechase, Women

Russia’s Yuliya Zaripova had won the steeple at the 2011 World Championships, and had steadily moved up the world rankings, ranking 3rd in 2009, 2nd in 2010, and 1st in 2011. She came into London favored and proved the experts correct, winning the gold medal in a comfortable 9:06.72, almost two seconds ahead of the runner-up Habiba Ghribi of Tunisia. Zaripova led from the start and continued to string out the field with her excellent hurdling technique. After two kilometres, only Al-Ghribi, Sofia Assefa of Ethiopia and Milcah Chemos of Kenya could maintain contact with her. On the final lap, Al-Ghribi moved to Zaripova’s shoulder and seemed ready to pass her, but Zaripova picked up the pace and waltzed away to victory, not hampered by having led from the start. Zaripova said, “It was easy to win this gold. I was very confident about winning.” Assefa followed Al-Ghribi across the line for the bronze medal, with Chemos finishing fourth. Defending champion Gulnara Samitova-Galkina competed in the final but did not finish.

Al-Ghribi did not have an easy time competing as a Tunisian woman in athletics. Radicals in Tunisia claimed her behavior was un-Islamic and they urged the Tunisian government to strip her of her nationality because her running gear was too revealing.

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.

The gold medalist, Yuliya Zaripova, was found guilty of a biological passport offense in March 2016 and was disqualified. Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi was advanced to the gold medal, while the silver went to the original bronze medalist, Sofia Assefa of Ethiopia, with original fourth-place finisher Milcah Chemos was awarded the bronze medal.

No other medalists were affected but between May and December 2015, three runners were also disqualified for biological passport offenses. These were Spaniard Marta Domínguez, who finished 12th in the final, Turkish runner Binnaz Uslu, and Ukrainian Svitlana Shmidt, both of whom did not advance out of the first round. Another runner, Gülcan Mıngır, who also did not make the final, was later disqualified for a retroactive doping positive announced in February 2020.