Tajikstan's Olympic gold medal winner Dilshod Nazarov handed two-year ban for doping, says AIU

Paris: Tajikstan's Dilshod Nazarov, who won Olympic hammer gold in the 2016 Rio Games, was on Thursday banned for two years for doping, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced.

Re-testing of Nazarov's sample from the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea, had shown the presence of a prohibited substance, namely DHCMT, or oral turinabol, a performance-enhancing anabolic steroid.

The AIU declared Nazarov ineligible for two years starting 24 September, 2019, and scrubbed his results between 29 August, 2011-August 29, 2013.

A three-time Asian champion, Nazarov also won world silver in Beijing in 2015 before claiming his country's first-ever Olympic gold medal a year later in Rio.

The 38-year-old, who also competed in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics, finished 10th in the Daegu worlds and fifth two years later in Moscow.