Russia’s Denis Alexeev celebrates after Russian Federation won bronze in the men’s 4x400m relay final at the National stadium as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 23, 2008.
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The 2008 Olympic javelin silver medallist Maria Abakumova is among four Russian athletes to be sanctioned for failing drugs tests following reanalysis of samples from the Beijing and London Games.
Newmarket’s Goldie Sayers is set to be awarded a bronze medal from the Beijing Olympics, eight years after competing at the event.
The IOC has been retesting stored doping samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics using the latest technology as part of the fight against drug cheats.
The IOC says all four cases involve the steroid turinabol.
In the javelin, Christina Obergfoell of Germany is set to be upgraded to silver and fourth-placed Goldie Sayers of Britain could get the bronze medal. The gold medalist was Barbora Spotakova of the Czech Republic.
The entire Russian relay team have been disqualified as a result of Alexeev’s doping, meaning the British squad of Andrew Steele, Robert Tobin, Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney will move up from fourth place.
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The duo are runner Inga Abitova, who finished sixth in the women’s 10,000 metres in Beijing in 2008, and cyclist Ekaterina Gnidenko, who was eighth in the women’s Keirin event in the 2012 Games in London.
