Lü Xiaojun celebrates after winning gold in the men's 81 kilograms weightlifting at the Tokyo Olympic Games on July 31, 2021. Photo: VCG

Two-time Olympic gold medalist Lü Xiaojun is expected to be in line for another gold medal from the Rio Olympic Games in 2016, as Kazakh weightlifter Nijat Rahimov will be stripped of his medal for a doping offence.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced Tuesday that Rahimov, who won gold in the men's 77 kilograms at Rio 2016, has been banned from the sport for the next eight years and will be disqualified of all competitive results from 2016 to 2021, after he was found "to have committed [an] Anti-Doping Rule Violation."

It means that Lü, who won silver medal after Rahimov in the competition in Rio 2016, is expected to claim the championship, and to become a three-time Olympic champion.

The 38-year-old is no stranger to breaking world records. In 2012, he surpassed his own world record with 379 kilograms at in the men's 77 kilograms match at the London Olympic Games, the record that he set with a total of 378 kilograms at the same heavyweight match at the World Weightlifting Championships in South Korea in 2009.

At the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, Lü set a new Olympic record after achieving a total score of 374 kilograms (a 170-kilogram snatch and a 204-kilograms clean and jerk) and bagged gold in the men's 81 kilograms weightlifting, making him the oldest gold medalist in weightlifting.