Heavyweight (≤105 kilograms), Men

This class looked like a Soviet Union national competition, as seven of the original eight finishers came from former Soviet Republics. The favorite was Belarussian Andrey Aryamnov who had won the 2007 World Championships. He won easily, breaking world records in the snatch, clean & jerk, and total. Russia won the silver and bronze medal, with Dmitry Klokov taking silver and Dmitry Lapikov the bronze. Ukrainian Ihor Razoronov originally placed sixth, but was disqualified when his doping test came back positive for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. Of the original top nine, the only non-Soviet Republic lifters were Poland’s Marcin Dołęga, who placed fourth, and his brother, Robert Dołęga, who placed eighth after the Razoronov disqualification.

That was how the event and the results seemed to have ended. In 2015, however, the IOC began re-testing samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics, using newer, more advanced testing techniques, in an effort to find those who had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), but in whom it could not be detected at the time of those Olympics. This was one of the many events affected.

In November 2016 Russian Dmitry Lapikov had a positive re-test for turinabol (dehydrochloromethyltestosterone), and was disqualified, losing his bronze medal, which was re-assigned to Polish lifter Marcin Dołęga.