Former Cal Star Alysia Montaño May Finally Get Her 2012 Olympic Medal

After a 12-year wait, an Olympic medal may be coming to Alysia Montaño.

The Athletics Integrity Unit announced last week that Russian runner Ekaterina Poistogova-Guliyev has been stripped of the silver medal she won in the 800-meter run at the 2012 London Olympics. If she declines to appeal, Montaño will be elevated from the fourth position to third, earning her a long-awaited bronze medal.

Soon to be 38, Montaño is a 2008 Cal grad, who was voted Pac-12 Female Athlete of the Year in 2007 and won six USA outdoor titles in the metric half-mile.

A long-time critic of doping in her sport, Montaño actually finished in fifth place at the London Olympics. Even then, she strongly suspected others in the race benefited from illegal chemicals.

“When you go back and watch the race,” Montaño told the New York Times in 2015, “and you see someone literally watching the race behind you, kind of jogging, and you are putting out max effort, and they kind of just walk past you, put their hands in the air and are like ‘Yay!’ and you are on the ground, huffing and puffing and about to throw up, you are like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ “

Of course, Montaño’s suspicions were justified.

In 2013, Russian Elena Arzhakova, who placed sixth in the Olympic final, was judged to have violations in her biological passport and was suspended backdated to July 2011, disqualifying her from the race.

Then, in 2017, Olympic champion Mariya Savinova of Russia was stripped of her gold medal for doping offenses, moving Montaño up from fifth to fourth place.

Now, Poistogova-Guliyev, who finished third at London, will receive a two-year ban from March 2023 for her use of a prohibited substance, disqualifying her results from July 17, 2012, until Oct. 20, 2014. 

Poistogova-Guliyev has until May 13 to appeal. If she declines to do so, her Olympic bronze medal will be stripped and will go to Montaño.

In an Instagram post, Montaño wrote she persisted in her pursuit of sporting justice because she "couldn't let dopers win.”

"I moved forward with my family knowing this Olympic medal was mine," Montaño wrote. "I laid it out there every time. I have no regrets, only that I wish I was supported in real time.”

If she winds up with her Olympic medal, it won’t be the first time track and field officials corrected things on her behalf. At the 2019 World Championships, Montaño was presented with bronze medals for the 2011 and ’13 Worlds after finishers ahead of her in those races were disqualified.

Montaño, who competed as Alysia Johnson at Cal before being married, was the NCAA indoor and outdoor champion for 800 meters as a junior in 2007. She still owns Cal’s school record of 1:59.29 and her career best of 1:57.34 ranks ninth on the all-time U.S. list.