Wednesday 25 May 2016 17:05, UK
Great Britain could be handed two extra bronze medals from the Beijing Olympics in 2008 after 14 Russian athletes tested positive for doping.
It was revealed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week that 31 athletes from 12 countries, competing in six different sports, could be banned from this year's Olympics in Rio after 454 doping samples from Beijing were re-tested.
The tests were focused on the doping samples of those athletes who are expected to go to Rio this summer.
And the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) has been notified by the IOC that 14 of the 31 athletes are Russian.
The ROC has not identified the 14 athletes but they have been named by Russian media and they include several medallists from Beijing. There are allegedly 11 track and field athletes, two weightlifters and one rower on the list.
The athletes involved still have the chance to have their B samples tested, but if the positive tests are confirmed, and their results annulled, it could see Britain's bronze medal tally from Beijing rise from 15 to 17.
Maria Abakumova is allegedly one of the athletes involved after winning the silver medal in the women's javelin in China, an event in which Britain's Goldie Sayers finished fourth and could now be promoted to third place.
The British quartet of Andrew Steele, Robert Tobin, Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney came fourth in the men's 4x400m relay and they could also be handed a bronze medal if allegations that Denis Alekseyev, who was a member of the bronze-medal winning Russian team, is involved prove to be correct and he is disqualified.
Tatiana Firova, who won a silver medal as part of Russia's 4x400m relay squad, is another athlete allegedly under suspicion and Britain's Christine Ohuruogu, Kelly Sotherton, Marilyn Okoro and Nicola Sanders could be upgraded to fourth from fifth place as a consequence.
Sotherton, who won bronze in the heptathlon at the 2004 Athens Olympics, says if the medals are to be awarded to Britain it will be frustrating news for Britain's performance director at the time, Dave Collins.
"This has touched not just athletes, but people within in the sport," she said.
"Our performance director in Beijing, Dave Collins, basically got sacked because he didn't reach his medal target, he only got four out of the predicted five.
"If the other two do get medals, it would mean he should have got six and his target was five. Would he have been sacked then?"
Russia was suspended by the IAAF, athletics' world governing body, in November after being accused of "state-sponsored" doping in a report commissioned by WADA.
A decision on whether they will be reinstated for the Rio Olympics will be announced on June 17.
