Alysia Montaño is set to be upgraded to a bronze medal after her rivals doped. That still feels like a ‘stab in the gut’

Twelve years after competing at the London Olympics, American athlete Alysia Montaño is in line to win a bronze after her rivals were found to have doped.

A step onto the podium. A medal draped over your head and a flag raised in your honor. Music. Tears of joy and relief as years of hard work come to fruition. Receiving a first Olympic medal is supposed to be a momentous and exhilarating occasion for every athlete but not Alysia Montaño. It was late at night in Cleveland this year when the American athlete was informed that her fourth-place finish at the 2012 Olympics is set to be upgraded to bronze. Alone in a hotel room, thousands of miles from home, her initial emotions were only emptiness and loss. This should have come 12 years earlier, in a packed stadium with her family sitting proudly in the stands. Instead, all Montaño could do was lie down and stare vacantly at the ceiling as the hours drifted by. “A stab in the gut, in the heart, really,” is how she describes her supposed moment of triumph. “I kind of felt a sinking feeling, to be honest.” Montaño initially placed fifth in the women’s 800-meter final in London, about half a second outside the medal positions having led the race bravely through the first lap.