Korzhanenko tested positive for doping at the 1999 IAAF World Indoor Championships. She lost the silver medal and was handed a two-year doping suspension. She later received a life ban from the IAAF in a Memorandum of September 21, 2005.
Irina refused to return the gold medal, despite the pressure of national Athletics Federation"s officials.
She gained international recognition when she won a bronze medal at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships. In the following years she became European Indoor champion, European champion and World Indoor champion. At the 2004 Summer Olympics she originally won the gold medal in shot put, but tested positive for stanozolol and was stripped of the medal.
She said she did not use stanozolol and that Russian officials gave her no help to prove it or to defend herself.
