Gold for Yogeshwar Dutt?

The medal saga around Olympian wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt refuses to end. After reports of his bronze being upgraded to silver at the London Olympics in 2012 earlier this week, Friday saw reports claiming that gold medallist Toghrul Asgarov of Azerbaijan too had tested positive for prohibited substances and Yogeshwar could even get the gold medal!

While there was no official confirmation of the same, with even the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) claiming to have no information about it, reports suggested Yogeshwar could be India’s second individual gold medallist after Abhinav Bindra. However, it may not be so easy even if Asgarov does test positive.

For one, there is no precedent of both finalists in wrestling testing positive and so the IOC and the United World Wrestling, the world body, would have to decide on the future course. Also, Asgarov had defeated the other bronze medallist, USA’s Coleman Scott, in the semifinal en route his gold.

In which case, according to repechage rules in wrestling, it would be Scott who would get the first right to be upgraded. The same rule was followed in the case of Yogeshwar, who had lost to silver medallist, the late Besik Kudukhov of Russia, before winning bronze.

However, since Scott could not possibly be upgraded to a gold directly from bronze now, it remains to be seen how the IOC decides to reallocate the medals. Experts suggest a relook at both the bronze-medal winning bouts and decide on the basis of technical points and other scores to decide the medallists.

All this would, however, happen only after any official confirmation of not only Asgarov’s positive test but also a clean chit to both Yogeshwar and Scott in the re-tests.