Confession's gold dividend

Weightlifting

Two months after a girlfriend's confession led to the lifting of his lifetime ban from the sport, Alexei Petrov of Russia has won an Olympic gold medal.

Petrov had best lifts totalling 402.5 kilograms on Saturday to win the middle heavyweight (91kg) competition. Leonidas Kokas, of Greece, won the silver medal with 390.0. Oliver Caruso, of Germany, won the bronze by lifting the same weight but Kokas was placed ahead because of lighter body weight.

Petrov won the 1995 World Championships by 20kg, but tested positive for a banned substance and received a lifetime suspension from the International Federation.

However, a former girlfriend later confessed in writing that she had slipped the substance into his food, and the IWF rescinded the ban. "She felt sorry for me, that's why she came and told," he said. "I trusted in the federation's fairness and they were fair. The truth won."

In the contest Petrov broke his own world record in the snatch, lifting 187.5kg. The lift gave him a five-kilo lead on the field, and he clinched the gold by lifting 215kg on his first attempt in the clean-and-jerk. Petrov, 21, later tried and failed to set records in his final two clean- and-jerk lifts, which also would have enabled him to break the record for the total lift in the category.