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Fountain given Olympic heptathlon silver after Blonska forfeit
2008-08-23
BEIJING (AFP) - American Hyleas Fountain was awarded the Olympic heptathlon silver medal Saturday at a ceremony in the Athletes Village following the explusion of original runner-up Lyudmila Blonska for doping. Steve Roush, the US Olympic Committee's sport performance chief, presented the medal to Fountain after she moved up because Ukraine's Blonska tested positivre for methyltestosterone and faces a life ban for the second offense. "I think it's great to get the silver, and I won it in a fair way," Fountain said. "But it's not my place to judge her. I just wanted to get on the medal stand. I didn't know where it would be. I'm very happy with the silver." Fountain joined Jackie Joyner-Kersee as the only US women to ever claim Olympic heptathlon medals, scoring 6,619 points to finish behind Ukraine's Nataliia Dobrynska by 114 points. Russia's Tatiana Chernova, who had 6,591 points for fourth, moved up to third to take the bronze previolusly awarded to Fountain.
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