Country Russia Name Svetlana Tsarukayeva Sport Weightlifting Role Weightlifter | Event(s) 63kg Height 1.62 m Coached by Kazbek Zoloev Weight 62 kg | |
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Born December 25, 1987 (age 36) ( 1987-12-25 ) Ordzhonikidze, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Olympic medals Weightlifting at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's 63 kg | ||
Svetlana Kaspolatovna Tsarukaeva (Russian: Светлана Касполатовна Царукаева) (born 25 December 1987) is a Russian weightlifter.
She won the 2006 Women's Junior World Championships in the 58 kg category, with a total of 231 kg.
Tsarukaeva participated in the women's -58 kg category at the 2006 World Weightlifting Championships and won the silver medal, finishing behind Qiu Hongmei. She snatched 108 kg and clean and jerked an additional 125 kg for a total of 233 kg, 4 kg behind winner Qiu.
At the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships she won the silver medal in the 63 kg category, with a total of 250 kg.
Tsarukaeva entered the 2008 Summer Olympics as the favourite for the 63 kg event, but she failed in all three of her attempts at 107 kg in the snatch and did not qualify for the clean & jerk. It was originally reported that she deliberately hit her head on the wall in frustration whilst exiting to the warm-up area, but video makes it clear that it was accidental, leaving her in floods of tears.
Tsarukaeva won a silver medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the Women's 63 kg event. However, on 27 July 2016, the IWF reported that, in the IOC's second wave of re-sampling for doping violations at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Tsarukayeva had tested positive for the steroid dehydrochlormethyltestosterone. If confirmed, she would be stripped of the Olympic medal. The IWF has provisionally suspended her. On 5 April 2017 it was announced that as a result of retesting samples she had been disqualified from the 2012 Olympics for a drug violation, and her silver medal withdrawn.