No wonder she didn't appeal...

So; now we know why Nadzeya Ostapchuk didn't appeal her disqualification from the London Olympics Women's Shot Put; the Herald reports:

The coach of disgraced Belarus shot putter Nadezhda Ostapchuk has confessed he added a banned drug to her food.

It's been revealed overnight the athlete's OIympic gold medal has been handed back to the International Olympic Committee, ready to be given to Kiwi Valerie Adams who placed second at the London Olympics.

Ostapchuk has landed a one-year ban for testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid.

The sentence was lenient because Ostapchuk was completely in the dark that she had doped, according to Alexander Vanhadlo, the head of Belarus' anti-doping agency.

Vanhadlo said that Ostapchuk's coach, Alexander Yefimov, was the only person responsible for the violation of the doping code and was banned for four years.

"Yefimov confessed that he added the banned drug metenolone into Ostapchuk's food because he was worried by her unimpressive results ahead of the Olympics," Vanhadlo told the press.

"Yefimov said that he did it at the training base in Belarus just days before the start of the Games without Ostapchuk's knowledge."

Ostapchuk became the first medallist disqualified from the London Games for doping and was stripped of her women's Olympic shot put title.

We still smell a rat. Ostapchuk's appearance and physique changed so much from previous events, even those of recent occurrence that it defies belief that she was doped just days out from competition at London. Check out this photograph from days gone by:

And a one-year ban for Ostapchuk is very, very lenient. It should be noted however that this is just a ban by her home authorities, and bans from the IAAF and the IOC are likely to follow and be more severe. Ostapchuk's drug cheating has brought the IOC in particular into disrepute.

The best news of all however is that the gold medal that is rightly Valerie Adams' has been returned to the IOC. Having deprived Adams of a moment of glory in London due to help from the chemists, Ostapchuk has at least had the decency to return the gold medal. 

Valerie Adams is a worthy and drug-free world and Olympic champion. Soon she will have the medal to prove it. And with any luck, Nadzeya Ostapchuk has cheated for the last time.