NEW YORK – It took Lashinda Demus of the United States 52.77 seconds to run the women’s 400m hurdles at the 2012 London Olympics.

It took more than a decade for her to be upgraded to first place from second. A year after that decision, and 12 years after the race, she is still waiting to receive her gold medal.

One of her teammates, Erik Kynard Jr, competed in the high jump at the London Games. Like Demus, he was beaten by a Russian athlete later found guilty of doping.

And like Demus, he had to wait many years before being named the victor. He, too, has never touched his gold medal.

Demus and Kynard are expected to finally receive their medals this summer during the Paris Olympics. The details are still being ironed out; officials hope a resolution could come soon.

But, for nine American figure skaters who in January were elevated to first place in the team competition nearly two years after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the wait continues.

The Russian team who finished ahead of them, and later became embroiled in a doping case, have filed multiple appeals challenging the loss of their golds. That could mean months, at least, of new legal battles.

All three cases have highlighted concerns about the inability of international officials to balance the imperatives of clean sport and fair play with providing justice to deserving athletes in a timely manner.

The reasons are varied – vulnerabilities in testing; a lack of uniform international commitment in the anti-doping system; an often lengthy appeals process – but the consequences are personal.

Dozens of competitors have received their gold, silver and bronze medals long after their Olympic moment has passed. Some, like Demus, 41, and Kynard, 33, retired before getting a resolution.

“It makes the IOC look really bad. In the NBA and the NFL, when the game ends, you know who won,” said Bill Mallon, an Olympic historian who tracks the reallocation of medals.

During his ordeal, Kynard said, his faith and trust in the Olympic movement had fallen “lower and lower”. But he also learnt not to define himself by the outcome of a sporting event.

He laughed at one point and said there was one consolation to waiting for his gold medal: “I look forward to giving my youngest son a new teething toy.”

The reception of a deferred medal can confirm an athlete’s sense of integrity, and bring some inner peace. But the waiting can also cause mental stress and, for gold medallists in particular, a significant loss of financial opportunities.

Kynard estimated that he had lost out on at least US$500,000 (S$666,700) in potential prize money, sponsorships and appearance fees that he might have claimed as an Olympic champion.

Twelve years later, he said, the meaning of a gold medal feels diminished, “like a participation trophy”.

Belated medals have often been delivered quietly, and sometimes with little dignity.

Adam Nelson, who was declared the shot put winner at the 2004 Athens Olympics after the apparent victor was disqualified for doping, received his gold medal nine years later outside a Burger King outlet in Atlanta airport.

Nelson said the anti-climax of receiving his medal at an airport rather than in Olympia, Greece, the hallowed home of the ancient Games, filled him not with joy but rather “a real sense of loss”.

Demus, now a high school track coach, did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2023, upon finally being declared the 2012 hurdles champion, she wrote that users of banned drugs should be stripped of their medals.

She added that she would not want any other athlete to experience the loss that she did in terms of “the official title, medal, recognition and missed compensation that goes with it all”.

Since drug screenings began at the Olympics in 1968, there have been 164 events in which medals have been reallocated or withdrawn, according to Mallon.

But anti-doping officials are often a step behind in an endless game of pharmacological cat-and-mouse with athletes who use banned substances and blood-boosting agents.

Even brief delays can see competitors miss out on every Olympic athlete’s dream – to stand atop a podium at the Games, to see their flag raised, to hear their national anthem played.

“When the systems fail you and you get slighted, there’s no adequate replacements for it,” said Nelson, now a high school athletic director.

“There’s nothing you can do to go back and rewrite that history. That moment has passed.” NYTIMES