Olympics: Adams to seek answers on gold

Valerie Adams will visit the International Olympic Committee headquarters in Switzerland tomorrow to hand over the shot put silver medal and seek answers on when she will receive her gold medal from disgraced rival Nadzeya Ostapchuk.

Adams was elevated from silver to gold a day after the Games ended when it was announced Ostapchuk had tested positive for the banned anabolic agent metenolone.

However, the Belarus athlete has pledged to appeal, making Adams wait for her prize.

"I don't care what she does. I'm giving back my silver medal to get the gold,'' Adams said today, AP reports.

Adams was competing in Lausanne today, home of the IOC, where she won her second event since the Olympics. She was originally hoping to receive the gold at the Lausanne Diamond League meet but that didn't eventuate with little word on the medal's whereabouts from Belarus.

The International Olympic Committee told the Herald via email last week that the Belarus National Olympic Committee would return the medal from Ostapchuk to its headquarters. But it gave no indication of when this would happen or what kind of response it had received from the Belarusians.

Adams' manager, Nick Cowan, said she was keen to celebrate her medal.

"If a medal was available today she wants it today, which is fair enough. But she wants to celebrate it in New Zealand as well and, in all reality, I think what we are staring at is a medal presentation in New Zealand, which she is really excited about.

"But we don't know if that is going to be in a month's time, three, 10 or 12 so therefore we are preparing ourselves for a long haul.

"We can only hope that it will be quick and this side of Christmas, but it may not be and I have had that discussion with Valerie."

Adams won the Lausanne event with a throw of 20.95 metres, 25 centimetres further than her gold medal throw at the London Olympics but still short of her second best recorded before the Games.

It is the New Zealander's second Diamond League victory in two weeks, and third of the season, after winning in Stockholm last weekend.

Her best effort was 1.35 metres further than second placed Michelle Carter of the USA.

Olympics silver medalist Yevgeniya Kolodko finished in third, more than two metres behind Adams. Adams passed 20 metres on all three of her recorded throws.

- HERALD ONLINE/NZ HERALD