It appears that Georgia Tech great Chaunté Lowe can now add Olympic medalist to her lengthy list of accomplishments.
Lowe is in position to retroactively be awarded the bronze medal from the 2008 Olympics in the high jump after the bronze medalist, Russian Anna Chicherova, lost her appeal against having her medal stripped for testing positive for steroids. The Court of Arbitration for Sport announced the decision Friday.
Lowe, a four-time Olympian, finished sixth in Beijing, but the fourth- and fifth-place finishers also tested positive for steroids last year as the International Olympic Committee re-tested hundreds of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games, using new techniques to detect steroids.
With the appeal final, the IOC can now award Lowe the bronze medal, which would make her the first female Tech athlete to earn an Olympic medal.
It’s a redemptive moment for Lowe, 33, who had hoped to earn her first medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro but fell agonizingly short. She finished fourth, when a successful jump on her last attempt, at 2 meters (6-foot-6, 3/4 inches), would have meant gold. The IOC announced that Chicherova and the fourth- and fifth-place finishers had tested positive last November.
Lowe, who continues to be coached by Tech assistant coach Nat Page, announced the decision on her Twitter account Friday: “Well. ... The party will finally begin. Russian high jumper stripped of bronze medal.”
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