Mariya Savinova

Mariya Sergeyevna Savinova, born 13 August 1985, is a Russian former athlete who specialized in the 800 metres. Her career is defined as much by sanction as by performance: in 2017 she was found guilty of doping and was suspended from competition for four years. Alongside the ban, three years of her elite results were nullified and she was stripped of both of her World Championship medals, won in 2011 and 2013, and of her 2012 Olympic gold medal. Her case is one of the best known examples of retroactive disqualification in Olympic and world athletics, and any account of the 800 metres in the early 2010s has to note which of her results still stand and which were erased.