Bahrain's Rashid Ramzi has been stripped of his Beijing Olympic 1500 meters gold medal for doping, the secretary-general of Bahrain's Olympic Committee said Wednesday. “The Bahraini Olympic Committee has received a letter from the disciplinary committee of the International Olympic Committee announcing the decision to strip runner Rashid Ramzi of his gold medal for the 1500 meters,” Sheikh Ahmad Bin Hamad said. “The International Olympic Committee has requested that the gold medal be returned as soon as possible.” Moroccan-born Ramzi won the Gulf country's first ever Olympic gold when he stormed to victory in the prestigious 1500m in the Beijing Games last year. Asbel Kipruto Kiprop of Kenya who won silver behind Ramzi now stands to be upgraded to gold. New Zealand's Nicholas Willis took bronze in the 1,500 final and Mehdi Baala of France was fourth. Ramzi, who gained Bahraini citizenship in 2002 after joining the country's armed forces a year earlier, shot to fame when he won the 800m and 1500m double at the 2005 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, becoming the first man to do so at a global event since since New Zealander Peter Snell in 1964. On Tuesday, Italian cyclist Davide Rebellin was stripped of his silver medal in the Beijing road race for a positive CERA test. Greek race walker Athanasia Tsoumeleka, who did not win a medal, was also disqualified Wednesday. The other athletes from Beijing who tested positive were German cyclist Stefan Schumacher and Croatian 800-meter runner Vanja Perisic. They did not win medals. The IOC previously disqualified nine athletes for doping at the Beijing Games. They included Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska who was stripped of her silver medal, and North Korean shooter Kim Jong-su, whose silver and bronze medals were revoked. A sixth athlete was initially found positive in the retesting process, but women's weightlifter Yudelquis Contreras was cleared by the Dominican Olympic Committee after the “B” sample came back negative.
