The International Olympic Committee has announced that two medalists who wrestling at the 2008 Games in Beijing have had their medals stripped. Freestyle wrestlers Soslan Tigiev of Uzbekistan and Taimuraz Tigiyev of Kazakhstan will lose their silver medals.

Athletes strive their entire lives to be on the podium every four years, but nowadays those on the podium seem more and more likely to be stricken from the record books. In the case of Tigiev (UZB), it is the second time he has been stripped of an Olympic medal.

It has been known for months that the IOC issued a re-test of samples from the 2008 Games, and Tigiev's came back positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol). The bronze medalist at 74kg on Tigiev's side of the bracket was Murad Gaidarov of Belarus, so he could potentially move up to be the silver medalist now in the record books. Gaidarov beat Gheorghita Stefan of Romania for bronze, so Stefan now has the potential to move up to bronze.

After the 2012 Games in London, Tigiev was stripped of his 74kg Olympic bronze medal when he tested positive for Methylhexanamine, which in turn gave the bronze to Gabor Hatos of Hungary. The Uzbekistani's only other world medal came at the 2006 world championships.

Tigieyev (KAZ) was competing in the 96kg division and made the finals against Shirvani Muradov of Russia. He also tested positive for turinabol and was ordered to have his medal removed. The bronze medalist ended up as Giorgi Gogshelidze of Georgia, with the fifth-place spot going to Michel Batista of Cuba. They are likely to move up to silver and bronze, respectively, though at this time United World Wrestling has not issued any statements regarding how the medals will be split.

Both wrestlers are of Ossetian origin, though they did not compete for Russia. Ossetia is the same region where the late Besik Kudukhov is from, who we just learned this week will not be stripped of his 2012 Olympic silver. Kudukhov tested positive for the same banned substance, though his case was dropped by an IOC disciplinary commission with no action taken. FloWrestling broke the original story about Kudukhov back in August. The full statements from the IOC regarding Tigiev and Tigiyev can be found below.

The complete ruling on Soslan Tigiev:


The complete ruling on Taimuraz Tigiyev