Rob Heffernan has been awarded an Olympic medal

Athlete Rob Heffernan has become an Olympic medal winner.

The Cork man has been awarded a bronze for the 50 kilometre walk at the 2012 London Olympics.

It is after an opponent was stripped of his medal for doping offences.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled to retrospectively award him the bronze medal.

The ruling came after the six appeals against the cases of the Russian athletes disqualified by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) were upheld.

Speaking previously about the possibility of getting an Olympic medal, Rob Heffernan said it would be a huge achievement for him describing an Olympic medal as the biggest thing in sport.

Heffernan told Irish radio station Today FM: "I'm buzzing. I got a generic email off the Court of Arbitration for Sport (containing the judgment).

"I had to read it a few times just in case I made a mistake.

"That makes me an Olympic bronze medallist and it's unreal."

The 38-year-old knew he could be nudged up to third place as the investigation into Kirdyapkin progressed.

He added: "It's been dragging on and people in Cork have been coming up and congratulating me on being a new Olympic medallist. A lot of people were congratulating me on the gold and I never bothered correcting them.

"I was half living the lie. I was trying to believe it myself. Now that it's made official, I didn't know how I'd feel about it. I'm delighted, I'm over the moon, it's unreal.

"It's something that as long as I've been doing sport and as a kid I've been dreaming of, winning an Olympic medal, and now to have one it's hard to take in."

Russia could be banned from athletics at the Rio Olympics over the doping scandal and state-sponsored corruption that has engulfed the sport in the country.

Heffernan has also been upgraded to a 2010 European bronze as well.

The athlete is currently focusing on training for the 2016 Olympics in Rio this summer.