Final Doping Bans Issued for 12 Russian Track and Field Athletes

Imagine a big competition for runners and jumpers called track and field.

A few years ago, it was discovered that some athletes from Russia may have cheated by using special medicines to help them run faster or jump higher, and that some people tried to hide this cheating.

The people who make sure the games are fair, called the Athletics Integrity Unit, have been looking into this for a long time.

Now, they have finished looking at the last of these old cases.

They decided that 12 athletes from Russia will be banned because they were involved in cheating or hiding it a long time ago.

One of these athletes is Elena Kotulskaya, who was a good runner.

These bans are like a final stamp on the problem, although the Russian government has said they did nothing wrong.

This is because the evidence came from a special lab in Moscow that is now closed.