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Team GB set to add bobsleigh medal to Sochi 2014 haul after Russian teams disqualified

SOCHI, RUSSIA - FEBRUARY 22:  Pilot John James Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon of Great Britain team 1 make a run during the Men's Fou
Image: John Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon are in line to claim an Olympic medal from 2014

Team GB are in line to receive another Winter Olympics medal from Sochi 2014 after three Russian bobsleigh athletes were sanctioned.

The International Olympic Committee announced on Wednesday that Aleksandr Kasyanov, Alexei Pushkarev and Ilvir Khuzin had been found to have committed anti-doping violations during the event.

All three have therefore seen their results from Sochi 2014 expunged and they have been banned from the Olympics for life.

Team GB's line-up of John Jackson, Bruce Tasker, Stuart Benson, Joel Fearon initially finished fifth in the competition but two teams have now been disqualified from the results, moving them up to third.

The gold medal-winning quartet led by Alexander Zubkov was disqualified last week and that has now been followed by the removal of Kasyanov's team, which finished fourth and also included Khuzin and Pushkarev.

Jackson said: "I've just sat down and cried for the last five minutes - that's how emotional it feels.

"I thought I'd got my head round it - that we missed out and we can't go back - but it's just hit me how hard we worked and how much we put into the season to achieve that goal.

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"We'll never get on the Olympic podium, but it's all about the memories of that process. To be part of what will hopefully now be Britain's most successful Winter Olympic team is a great feeling."

Russia-1 four-man bobsleigh, pilot Alexander Zubkov competes in the Bobsleigh Four-man Heat 3 at the Sanki Sliding Center during the Sochi Winter Olympics
Image: Alexander Zubkov has lost gold medals from the two-man and four-man bobsleigh events

Zubkov also won the two-man event in Sochi and his result from that event was also expunged.

The disqualifications all stem from the investigations undertaken by the Oswald Commission into Russian doping practices at Sochi and the IOC said more hearings will be held into other athletes over the coming weeks.

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