TEHRAN – Iranian freestyle wrestler Komeil Ghasemi will be awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics joint gold medal, the press service of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Tuesday.

Ghasemi and Russia’s Bilyal Makhov won the bronze medals at the 2012 Olympics in men’s freestyle wrestling in the under-120 kg category. The gold and silver medals at that time went to Uzbekistan’s Artur Taymazov and Georgia’s Davit Modzmanashvili respectively.

Taymazov was stripped of his gold last year after his reanalyzed samples tested positive for banned steroids.

The other finalist, Modzmanashvili, was also disqualified after the IOC found a banned substance in his samples, announced in January 2019.

Taymazov, who defeated Ghasemi in the men's freestyle 120 kg semifinals, had his results vacated for the second time in his career after being previously stripped of his 2008 gold medal at 120 kg following a retesting of his samples in April 2017.

In a first for Olympic wrestling, two gold medals in one category will be awarded namely to Ghasemi and Makhov.

For the wrestling world this is an unparalleled event, where gold and silver medals winners in the same weight category were stripped of their titles and the two golds were later awarded to third-place winners.