Kelly Sotherton set to be awarded Bronze medal from 2008 Games

Great Britain’s Kelly Sotherton is set to be awarded a heptathlon bronze medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics after Russia’s Tatyana Chernova was disqualified following a sample re-analysis.

The athlete, who won bronze in the heptathlon at the 2004 Games, finished fifth in the event in 2008 but has climbed to third after the previously announced doping ban of Ukraine’s Lyudmila Blonska and now Chernova.

Chernova’s sample from the 2008 Games tested positive for steroid use, prompting the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to void her bronze medal.

The IOC have been reanalysing a number of stored samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games, with Chernova the latest in a long line of athletes to be found guilty of doping.

This is the second time Sotherton has been upgraded to a bronze medal.

She was awarded bronze in the 4x400 metres relay in Beijing thanks to the belated disqualification of the teams from Belarus and Russia.

The 40-year-old retired from the heptathlon in 2012.