MINSK: Disgraced Belarus shot putter Nadezhda Ostapchuk was on Tuesday handed a one-year ban after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid that cost her Olympic gold.

The sentence was lenient because Ostapchuk was completetly in the dark that she had doped, according to Alexander Vanhadlo, the head of Belarus' anti-doping agency.

Vanhadlo said that Ostapchuk's coach, Alexander Yefimov, was the only person responsible for the violation of the doping code and was banned for four years.

"Yefimov confessed that he added the banned drug metenolone into Ostapchuk's food because he was worried by her unimpressive results ahead of the Olympics," Vanhadlo told the press.

"Yefimov said that he did it at the training base in Belarus just days before the start of the Games without Ostapchuk's knowledge."

Ostapchuk became the first medallist disqualified from the London Games for doping and was stripped of her women's Olympic shot put title.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded gold to New Zealand's Valerie Adams after Ostapchuk provided two urine samples which were both found to contain metenolone.

Russia's Yevgeniya Kolodko was upgraded to silver medal position, with Lijiao Gong of China taking bronze.

Ostapchuk had been competing in her third Olympics in London. She finished fourth in Athens in 2004 and won bronze in Beijing four years ago. - AFP

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