Former national weightlifter Siripuch Gulnoi received her Olympic bronze medal in a special ceremony held at the 2018 world championships in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on Wednesday.
The 25-year-old Siripuch, who competed at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the women's 58kg division as Rattikan Gulnoi, originally finished fourth but was promoted to third and won the bronze medal after Yuliya Kalina of Ukraine was disqualified.
Kalina was stripped of her bronze medal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2016 after she became the first athlete to be officially sanctioned by the body in the wake of re-tests of samples provided at London 2012.
A re-analysis of a urine sample provided by Kalina returned a positive result for prohibited substance turinabol, an anabolic steroid.
Siripuch, who travelled to Ashgabat for Wednesday's ceremony, fought back tears as she received the medal from Tamas Ajan, president of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), and revealed how proud she was of the moment.
"I'm so happy to have received the Olympic bronze medal," said Siripuch.
"It was such a great honour that the organisers held this special ceremony to award the medal to me and the other two athletes. It was a bit late but it's finally mine!" added Suripuch, who is already retired from the sport and is now living and helping running family's farming business in her hometown Surin.
Two other weightlifters also received their Olympic medals during Wednesday's ceremony including Iran's Saeid Mohammadpourkarkaragh (men's 94kg gold medal, London 2012) and Denis Ulanov of Kazakhstan (men's 85kg bronze medal, Rio 2016).
Siriyakorn Khaipandung was due to compete in the women's 81kg division late last night while Chidchanok Pulsabsakul (women's 87kg) and Duangaksorn Chaidee (women's over 87kg) will be in action tomorrow, the last day of the championships.