HAMPSHIRE 400 metres man Rob Tobin will be belatedly awarded an Olympic bronze medal later this year.

The Great Britain 4x 400m relay team, which finished fourth at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, have been promoted to third because of a failed drugs test.

Denis Alekseyev was the guilty party, running the anchor leg for the disqualified bronze medallists Russia in Beijing.

Tobin ran the second leg in China, with Andrew Steele, Michael Bingham and Martyn Rooney completing the GB team. The quartet are likely to receive their medal at either the Anniversary Games in London or at the World Championships at the same venue.

Winning an Olympic bronze means Tobin – who was coached in Southampton by the late Todd Bennett - will have relay medals from all the major championships. He won silver at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009, three European Championship silver medals and a bronze in the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Talking about his belated medal, the former Basingstoke & Mid Hants one-lapper said: “It was a very strange feeling when I found out we were going to receive the medal as we never got to celebrate at the time it happened.

“In fact it was a disappointment for us and we felt, after running so well in the heats, we had a good chance of winning a medal.”

Tobin, 33, added: “Of course it is every athlete’s dream to win an Olympic medal and this was the one I was missing, so I am very pleased to have completed the set.”