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Robbie Grabarz, a former British high jumper, claims he has misplaced his Olympic bronze medal from 2012 as he prepares to get an enhanced silver next summer. The International Olympic Committee redistributed results last week, with Russia’s Ivan Ukhov stripped of his gold medal for his involvement in Russia’s state-sponsored doping programme.
“They’ve asked for the bronze back, but I haven’t been able to locate it,” said Grabarz, who retired in 2018. “I’ll have to have a big rummage for it.”
American Erik Kynard has been awarded gold, while Grabarz, 34, has been promoted to silver, together with Canada’s Derek Drouin and Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim – nine years after the London Games.
He claims he will have to write to the IOC stating that if he finds the medal, they can have it back. “I’ve got to keep it secure at all times – and I literally haven’t been able to come across it between safe areas and travelling around,” Grabarz told BBC Look East.
“I’m sure there are already some panicked emails going around claiming ‘he can’t find it.'” ‘I was on the podium, I had that moment,’ she says.
Robbie Grabarz, who was 25 at the time of the Olympics in 2012, is philosophical about his own predicament but feels for the competitors who had their moment of glory stolen from them. “I’m relieved I didn’t finish fourth,” he stated. “I was on the podium at the time, so I had that opportunity.”
“I’m also pleased I wasn’t upgraded from silver to gold because I believe that would have been incredibly tough to bear – I think it would have been soul destroying.”
He has, however, thought how things could have turned out if Ukhov had not cheated. “There are clearly psychological ramifications in that he can look at us and say, ‘I truly know, scientifically, I’m superior than you, because of what I’ve done to my body,'” Grabarz, from Cambridgeshire, remarked.
“The entire nature of the competition would have been different if he hadn’t dominated it.”
Your wages, appearance fees, or anything – they’d all have been a little bit more.”
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