Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) Taiwanese weightlifter Hsu Shu-ching will finally get the gold medal she was awarded in 2016 for her performance at the 2012 London Olympics sometime next year after the gold was confirmed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Hsu won a silver medal in the women's 53 kilograms weightlifting event at the 2012 games, finishing behind Zulfiya Chinshanlo of Kazakhstan.
But three weeks before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, the International Weightlifting Federation announced that the Kazakh weightlifter had failed her drug test and that Hsu would replace her as the gold medalist.
The IOC formally confirmed Chinshanlo's disqualification from the London games on Oct. 27, 2016, giving Hsu first place and her second Olympic gold, in addition to the one she won at the Rio games.
She is the only Taiwanese athlete to have ever won two golds at the Olympic Games.
The IOC notification sent to the Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee (CTOC) last week confirmed Hsu's promotion to the gold medal position in the women's 53kg event in London, said CTOC Deputy Secretary-General Wu Kuo-yu on Tuesday.
It was unclear why the confirmation came a full four years after Hsu was moved into the gold medal position in late 2016.
Hsu did fail a drug test on a sample taken before the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships, at which she won a silver medal, but she later returned the medal, and it was never reported that the failed drug test put her golds from London or Rio into question.
Hsu will have a few options to pick up her gold medal -- going to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland; accepting it at an award ceremony of any large-scale international sporting event (such as the Olympics, Asian Games, or World Championships), or any large sporting event in Taiwan; or receiving the award from the CTOC -- Wu said.
Wu said the IOC is expected to send the gold medal to the CTOC by the end of January after Hsu returns her silver medal to the IOC earlier in the month.
Hsu could receive the medal from the CTOC by the end of January, but if she wants to get it at a large domestic or international event, the CTOC will have to submit a plan three months before the presentation of the award for the IOC to review, Wu said.
After receiving the gold medal, Hsu will receive an additional NT$3.63 million (US$128,900) in prize money offered for Olympic gold medalists after deducting the amount for silver medalists, according to the Sports Administration under the Ministry of Education.
The prize money is distributed based on amended regulations governing the issuance of Guo Guang Athletic Medals and Scholarships, which provides the basis for rewarding Taiwan's top-performing competitors in large international sporting events.
