Lashinda Demus was busy coaching in March 2023 when she received a text from a friend.
“Congratulations!” the message said.
“Congratulations?” Demus responded.
“I didn’t even have a clue what he was talking about,” Demus, the Inglewood native and former Long Beach Wilson High School standout hurdler, recalled Wednesday.
It wasn’t until her friend forwarded her a news report that Demus learned that the International Olympic Committee had elevated her to gold medalist for the 400 meter hurdles at the 2012 Olympic Games in London because of a doping violation by Russia’s Natalya Antyukh, the winner in London.
“I found out when everybody found out,” Demus said. “Which I thought was kind of wild. I didn’t get a heads up for anything.”
Demus will finally receive her gold medal on August 9th in Paris in a special and groundbreaking event at Champions Park beneath the Eiffel Tower in the first ever medal reallocation at the Summer Olympic Games.
The IOC’s confirmation of the ceremony Wednesday came 4,384 days after Antyukh held off Demus by a mere seven-hundreths of a second, the blink of an eye, in London.
“This broke my heart as I knew I was the best runner in the race,” Demus said. “Once I get to Paris, for the Olympic Medal Ceremony, my broken heart will finally be healed.”
The healing process, the push to get the IOC to recognize Demus and other Olympic athletes deprived of medals and their proper standing by drug cheats in a manner worthy of their achievement was driven by Demus.
Thomas Bach’s presidency of the IOC has been marked a repeated failure to effectively address Russia’s decades long systemic state-sponsored doping program and the impact it has had on international sports and athletes like Demus.
IOC officials, Demus said “are probably just doing their job, trying to push things through. You’re trying to hit deadlines and I get it. And I think that’s why it’s necessary for someone like me to help and liaison through…
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