Rugelin Santos (31, Dominican Republic), who lied about her age to compete at the 2012 World Junior Athletics Championships in Barcelona (under 20) and win a gold medal, has been stripped of her medal and suspended for three years. The Athletes’ Ethics Commission (AIU), an independent body of World Athletics, said on Tuesday (Feb. 2) that Santos used a forged passport to compete in Barcelona in 2012. The passport listed his date of birth as ‘November 12, 1993’, when in fact he was born on November 12, 1992.” At the 2012 World Junior Athletics Championships in Barcelona, only “athletes who were 18 or 19 years old as of December 31, 2012” were allowed to compete. Santos, who was born in November 1992, was actually 20 years old at the time. Santos admitted to the AIU that he “forged a passport in order to participate in the 2012 World Junior Championships”.

The AIU has been investigating Santos’ passport falsification since July 2022 and finalized the discipline today. Santos has already served a “temporary suspension” and has not competed on the track this year. The AIU set the period of his suspension at “March 11, 2023 to March 10, 2026. Santos won the men’s 400 meters final at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Barcelona in 44.85 seconds. It was the first gold medal won by a Dominican athlete at a World Junior Championships. However, Santos’ record from that event would soon be erased. Santos won a silver medal in the men’s 400 meters at the 2012 London Olympics and a silver medal in the 1,600 meters mixed relay at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021. At the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, he won a bronze medal in the men’s 400 meters. Medals won at the Olympic and World Championships will not be stripped. “There is no age limit for the Olympic and World Championships and there is no basis to strip Santos of his Olympic and World Championships 스포츠토토존 medals as he did not violate any rules at those events,” the AIU said.