Sotherton initially finished fifth in the event but has risen to the medal positions after first Ukraine's Lyudmila Blonska, the original silver medallist, and then Chernova were found to have doped.

The 40-year-old has said though that she does not want Chernova's bronze medal, which she considers to be "dirty and tainted".

"If she has had the medal in her house and in her hands for the last nine years why would I want that?," she told The Times.

"Why would I want something that has been around her neck?

"I don't want that - it seems dirty and tainted.

"If I am to get a medal I want a fresh, clean one.

"But I don't care that much about receiving the medal itself because just being recognised goes a long way."

Sotherton, who also won Olympic heptathlon bronze at Athens 2004, is also part of the British women's 4x400 metres relay team set to be upgraded to third place in Beijing after the disqualification of Russia and Belarus.

"I came away from Beijing feeling a failure and now I have two medals from there and three in all," added the Briton, who retired from athletics in 2012.

Chernova was stripped of her medal this week after re-analysis of samples submitted at Beijing 2008 tested positive for anabolic steroid turinabol.

The heptathlete had already been stripped of her 2011 world title and the Olympic bronze medal she won at London 2012 for doping.

This was confirmed earlier this month after she proved unable to overturn a conviction based on biological passport abnormalities following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

She also failed a separate test for the same substance in January 2015.

Blonska, meanwhile, was stripped of her medal after failing for methyltestosterone, another anabolic steroid.

Fellow Ukrainian Nataliya Dobrynska won gold at Beijing 2008, while the United States' Hyleas Fountain was promoted to silver following Blonska's disqualification. 

Chernova, who originally finished fourth, was one of two more Russians disqualified on Monday (April 24) as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) continues to retest Beijing 2008 and London 2012 samples with up-to-date technology.

Sprinter Maksim Dyldin has also been retrospectively disqualified.

This means Russia have been stripped of their fifth-place finish in the men's 4x400m relay at London 2012.

Dyldin was also part of the Russian team which initially finished third in the men's 4x400m relay at Beijing 2008.

But they had already been disqualified after a failed retest by another team member, Denis Alekseyev.

Dyldin, 29, also failed for turinabol, but is already serving a four-year suspension after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced in February that he would be ineligible until 2021 after refusing to participate in drugs tests.

The two have each been caught thanks to new techniques provided by former Moscow Laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov, who has since defected to the US, which can detect steroids in the body for far longer.