Olympic champion Jared Tallent’s latest victory over sport’s drug cheats
Three years after becoming an Olympic champion following an arduous campaign against the sport’s drug cheats, Australian walker Jared Tallent has again been vindicated at the world championships in Doha.
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Champion walker Jared Tallent’s medal haul continues to grow even without setting foot on the start line.
For the second time in his career the Australian, who is a passionate anti-doping campaigner, has received a medal upgrade following the disqualification of Russian drug cheats.
Tallent, who isn’t competing in Doha because of injury, had two world championship silver medals added to his CV from the 50km events in Daegu in 2011 and Moscow 2013.
“It’s nice to receive medals for events that I should have received those medals for,” Tallent said.
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“To have the ceremony here at the world championships, it would have been nice to been here competing, so it’s nice to be receiving medals from championships gone by.
“It sort of makes up for the medal moments I would have had at those championships.”
The 34-year-old has been hampered by a long-time hamstring issue for almost three years since winning the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“I still want to go to Tokyo and be a medal hope, so it’s building towards that,” Tallent said.
“My fitness is getting better and I think my hamstring injuries are behind me.
“I’m looking forward to the national champs in December, hopefully I can get an Olympic qualifier there and have one last shot at getting on the podium.”
In 2016 Tallent finally became an Olympic gold medallist almost four years after he’d crossed the line in the men’s 50km walk in London behind Russian drug cheat Sergey Kirdyapkin.
A special ceremony was held in Melbourne for the medal presentation after Kirdyapkin was stripped of the title by the Court of Arbitration for Sport three months earlier.
This time around Tallent was elevated to silver in Daegu after the disqualification of Russian Sergey Bakulin. His countryman Denis Nizhegorodov was elevated to gold.
The Moscow silver comes after retrospective testing led to the disqualification of Russia’s Mikhail Ryzhov.
Tallent now has six medals at major championship with Olympic gold, silver and bronze to go with three world championship silver medals.
It was the only good news for Australia on day two of the world championships with both 800m representatives failing to progress.
Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Luke Mathews was well below his best finishing eighth in his heat while Peter Bol finished two spots outside the automatic qualifying in fifth place.
JESS FOX CLAIMS SILVER
Australia’s Jessica Fox has missed out on an 11th gold medal by 0.42 of a second in the women’s K1 final at the canoe slalom world championships in Spain. Fox, Australia’s most decorated canoe slalom athlete of all time, won silver after finished just 0.42 seconds behind Slovenian Eva Tercelj at La Seu on Saturday.
New Zealander Luuka Jones was a close third.
Fox says there was added pressure to defend her world title in the final because the winner automatically qualified for the Olympics, but the Australian has a secured a preliminary berth in Tokyo, pending a final nomination.
“I raced really well in that final and .042 is all that was missing between second place and first place and I don’t know where they were. Maybe at the finish line, maybe in the middle section but I’m thrilled to be on the podium again,” an emotional Fox said.
“I’m thrilled to be here and Eva put down an incredible run and Luuka as well, we are all within a second of each other and I think this is probably the tightest podium we’ve seen. It was such a hot final and I’m stoked to be on the podium.
“It’s all unofficial I guess, but I’m emotional, really happy and really pleased to have put down a performance to earn that spot and I guess that’s why I’m still thrilled with the podium.
“Obviously to win is really special but to be on the podium is still amazing especially when it’s got this value and means that I booked my spot to Tokyo.”
Originally published as Olympic champion Jared Tallent’s latest victory over sport’s drug cheats