It’s the second 2008 relay medal stripped this week from Russian Federation because of doping.
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Earlier this week Russia’s 4x100m women’s team were stripped of their gold medals from Beijing after re-analysis of a Yulia Chermoshanskaya sample.
Kapachinskaya and her Russian teammates will be stripped of the silver medal they won in the women’s 4×400-meter relay after Kapachinskaya tested positive for the prohibited substances stanozolol and turinabol.
This is the second positive test of Kapachinskaya’s career – this time for two steroids – and the 36-year-old’s case will now be referred to the International Association of Athletics Federations with a life ban being nearly certain.
Under global rules, an entire relay team loses its medals if one of the runners tests positive.
Kapachinskaya’s 2008 Olympics results – silver in the 4x400m relay and fifth in the 400m – were both annulled. Jamaica will be upgraded to silver, with Belarus taking bronze and the British quartet fourth.
Decathlete Alexander Pogorelov, who finished fourth in 2008, and shot putter Ivan Yushokov are the other athletes disqualified retrospectively.
The three drugs are all traditional steroids that go back decades.
For the Beijing and London retests, the International Olympic Committee used a method that can detect use of steroids going back weeks and months, rather than days.
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Russia’s track and field team, with the exception of one athlete based in the United States, were banned from the Rio Games over what the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said was a state-backed doping program.
