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Adams wants European medal presentation

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Adams wants European medal presentation

3News NZ

Valerie Adams (Photosport file)

Valerie Adams (Photosport file)

New Zealand athlete Valerie Adams wants to be presented with her Olympic medal in Switzerland.

Adams defended her shot put title at the London Games after Belarus rival Nadzeya Ostapchuk was stripped of the gold medal for testing positive to a banned substance.

While there have been suggestions that Adams could receive her belated gold medal in front of a big crowd at an All Blacks rugby test - either in Auckland against Australia, or in London against England later this year - Adams told Fairfax Media she wanted to receive it at an athletics meeting.

Ideally it would be at her training base of Lausanne, which hosts a Diamond League meet on August 23.

"I would like it sooner rather than later - and if I can get it before I go back home," Adams says.

"I'd love to do it in Lausanne where the IOC is based, and have it in a stadium at an athletics meet just full of people. And also Switzerland is sort of my second home and they've embraced this just as much as New Zealand has."

Officials have suggested it could take months for Adams to receive the medal, particularly as Ostapchuk is protesting her innocence.

Meanwhile, Ostapchuk is accusing a former coach of framing her.

In an interview with Belarusian newspaper Pressball, translated by news website Charter 97, Ostapchuk fingered former head coach Anatoly Baduyev, who was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service in June under suspicion of embezzlement.

One accusation against Baduyev was that he extorted money from coaches and athletes by blackmailing them with the threat of positive dope tests.

Ostapchuk said she had been victimised.

"The person (Baduyev), you know who I mean, the one who was involved in blackmail, he promised me long ago: you will have problems with doping control," she says.

"Now I think his threat begins to come true, even though he no longer works with us."

NZN

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Comments

15/08/2012 4:51:11 p.m.

Geranium wrote:

Won the medal, lost support.

15/08/2012 3:34:07 p.m.

Erm... wrote:

Maybe she can hire the Olympic stadium and get 85000 people to come along.