Olympedia – Triple Jump, Women

The defending champion was Cameroon’s Françoise Mbango but she had hardly been seen since Athina. In 2006 and 2007 she spent the time raising her newborn, and did not compete. She resumed training earlier in 2008 and competed in seven warm-up meets prior to Beijing. No problem. In the opening round of the final, she bounded 15.19 (49-6¼) to take the lead. Surpassed in round two by Pigi Devetzi of Greece (15.23 [49-11¾]), she answered later in the round with 15.39 (50-6), which would prove to be the winning mark. In the third round, Russian Tatyana Lebedeva jumped 15.32 (50-3¼) and that held up for the silver medal. Lebedeva would return five days later to add a silver in the long jump. The 2007 World Champion and 2008 World Indoor Champion, Yargelis Savigne, placed fifth.

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 January 2017 Tatyana Lebedeva (RUS) had a positive re-test for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone) and was tentatively disqualified. Lebedeva lawyered up, however, and appealed the disqualification to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but the CAS rejected that appeal in July 2018. Bronze medalist Pigi Devetzi also had a positive re-test, announced in November 2016, and was also disqualified. Lebedeva also lost the silver medal from the long jump event, while Devetzi was also DQed from that event, in which she finished 14th. At the time her doping was revealed Lebedeva was a member of the Russian state Duma, the IAAF Women’s Committee, and the World Olympians Association Executive Committee. Lebedeva appealed the disqualification but it was finally denied in 2018 and the medals re-assigned, with Olga Rypakova (KAZ) receiving the silver, and Yargelis Savigne (CUB) the bronze.