Tallent to get gold

MELBOURNE: Australian race walker Jared Tallent will receive his long awaited Olympic gold medal at a special ceremony in Melbourne next month.

Tallent finished second in the 50 kilometre walk at the 2012 Olympics behind Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, who was found guilty of doping last year and handed a three-year, two-month suspension by Russia’s anti-doping agency, backdated to the London Games.

Kirdyapkin was one of three Russian athletes stripped of their London medals by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March and athletics’ governing body the IAAF said they would re-allocate the medals.

Tallent has been a vocal critic of doping in sports and has refused to shake hands with athletes he believed were guilty of using banned substances at the end of races.