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| - Tajikistan's Dilshod Nazarov, who won Olympic hammer gold in the 2016 Rio Games, was on Thursday banned for two years for doping, leading to World Athletics president Sebastian Coe to demand he step down as the head of his country's track and field federation. Re-testing of Nazarov's sample from the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, South Korea, had shown the presence of a prohibited substance, namely DHCMT, or oral turinabol, a performance-enhancing anabolic steroid, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced. The AIU declared Nazarov ineligible for two years starting September 24, 2019, and scrubbed his results between August 29, 2011-August 29, 2013. It means he will be unable to defend his Olympic title in Tokyo this summer. A three-time Asian champion, Nazarov also won world silver in Beijing in 2015 before claiming his country's first ever Olympic gold medal a year later in Rio. The 38-year-old, who also competed in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympics, finished 10th in the Daegu worlds and fifth two years later in Moscow. "It's been very clear in the past when federation presidents or senior people within a federation that currently have a role have fallen foul, particularly as former competitors, of re-testing, they step down," Coe said after a World Athletics council meeting on Thursday. "I can think of a couple of cases particularly. "So there should be an expectation that this particular individual should not be involved as president of their federation." lp/mw
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