JARED Tallent has put some light into the latest dark doping news out of Russia by staging a mock award ceremony where he is adorned with one of the gold medals cheats have denied him.
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But despite his celebratory skit, filmed after Denis Nizhegorodov was named among 14 athletes to have tested positive at the Beijing Olympics through retrospective screening, the champion Australian walker is far from guaranteed to be crowned 2011 world champion.
Fairfax Media understands Australian athletic authorities are unconvinced that the world championship gold medal will land around Tallent's neck.
Unless it is proved that Russian Nizhegorodov has doped on another occasion, protocol dictates his results will only be annulled for the two-year period from the date of the 2008 Beijing Olympic race: spanning 2009 and 2010.
In that case, Nizhegorodov's win in the 50 kilometre walk at the 2011 world champions in Daegu, South Korea, would stand and Tallent would therefore remain silver medallist.
If further re-tested samples from Nizhegorodov return positive however, he would face a life ban which would get Tallent another retrospective win he believes he deserves.
Two positive tests typically trigger life bans in sport.
In the absence of a further positive being discovered, Tallent would again fall on the wrong side of a rival's doping ban. Tallent has built an unenviable reputation as one of the most hard-done by athletes on the planet with an extraordinary record of competing against proven cheats.
Already qualified to compete at the August Rio Olympics, Tallent is racing in La Coruna, Spain, this weekend in the IAAF race walking challenge.
Tallent's filmed, mock medal ceremony, complete with stirring musical soundtrack, features two friends presenting the walker with a gold medal with the regulation pomp.
The skit was posted online by Pat Birgan, manager of the Australian Institute of Sport's European Training Centre in Varese, Italy.
Birgan made specific reference to the 2011 world championships on Twitter with the accompanying post: "Not quite Daegu but nevertheless a gold medal ceremony well-deserved for WC11 50kmw".
At the 2011 world championship event Tallent actually finished third behind Russian pair Sergey Bakulin and Nizhegorodov.
Tallent was elevated to silver medallist after Bakulin's win was voided following a successful IAAF appeal against selective disqualification periods. Then, this week, Nizhegorodov was named by Russian authorities as one who had returned a positive in 2008 at Beijing.
Tallent will be awarded an Olympic gold medal at an official ceremony in Melbourne on June 17 for the 2012 London Olympics 50km walk. At that games event he was second to Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin by less than one minute.
Kirdyapkin was issued a three-year doping ban in 2015.
