BRITAIN’S KELLY SOTHERTON finished fifth in the heptathlon at the 2008 Olympics. On Monday, almost nine years after the Beijing Games, she got a call to tell her that she had been upgraded to a bronze medal.
Russia’s Tatyana Chernova has been disqualified after the IOC re-analysed one of her doping samples from Beijing and found that it had tested positive for a steroid.
“So I’ve just this second found out I’m three times Olympic medallist,” Sotherton tweeted on Monday, and later posted this video of the tearful moment when she heard the news.
Finding out that I've just got another Olympic medal. Yes I had tears. Happy Ones at this time! Hi pic.twitter.com/TAR5I4QQCd
— Kelly Sotherton (@KellySotherton) April 25, 2017
Sotherton had previously been upgraded from fifth to fourth when silver medallist Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine was stripped and banned for life following a second positive test.
Blonska’s disqualification moved Chernova into third place, but now, the bronze medal belongs to Sotherton, who retired from athletics in 2012.
It is not the first time that the Briton has been upgraded to win an Olympic medal. She was part of the British 4x400m relay team that was retrospectively awarded bronze in Beijing in 2008 following the disqualification of Belarus and Russia.
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