Jo Pavey is set to be upgraded to at least a bronze medal from the 2007 Osaka World Championships because Turkey’s 10,000m silver medallist Elvan Abeylegesse is among 28 athletes to be charged with doping offences.

Abeylegesse is one of the athletes who the IAAF will retrospectively ban after retesting frozen urine samples from Osaka and the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki.

Pavey was crestfallen after the 10,000m final in Japan. She ran bravely but finished fourth after being overtaken on the final lap by America’s Kara Goucher, who took bronze. Tirunesh Dibaba won gold ahead of Abeylegesse, who recovered to take silver even after having to stop briefly when her shoe fell off.

Jo Pavey will be given a bronze medal from the 10,000m in the 2007 World Championships in Osaka

Pavey was left flat out on the floor after finishing fourth in 2007, but she will now receive a bronze medal

Elvan Abeylegesse, pictured in 2004, is among 28 athletes to be charged with doping offences

An outspoken anti-doping voice, Pavey won her first senior international title in the 10,000m at the European Championships in Zurich last summer, aged 39. She won Commonwealth bronze earlier in the summer but has never won a medal on a global stage.

The news that she is likely to be given a medal and possibly prize money from the 2007 World Championships more than eight years after the event will be bittersweet for Pavey, who has missed out on her moment of glory and untold financial benefits in funding and sponsorships.

Abeylegesse also faces being stripped of silver medals from the Beijing Olympics in 2008 in the 5,000m and 10,000m.

The IAAF announced yesterday that reanalysing frozen samples using new technology has uncovered 32 adverse findings in the 28 athletes.

The identities of all the athletes will be revealed next week but the IAAF pledged none would be allowed to compete at the World Championships in Beijing later this month. The Turkish team yesterday announced Abeylegesse would be absent, citing injury problems.

Pavey told Sportsmail earlier this week she welcomed the move to retrospectively ban athletes but added that there was much more work to be done.

‘It’s great that advances in the anti-doping testing technology mean that these cheats can finally be caught,’ she said. ‘But it does feel like not enough has been done over the last few years to combat drugs cheats.’

Pavey winning European Championships gold in the 10,000m in Zurich in August 2014

Sebastian Coe (left) has come under further criticism for his stance on Sunday Times doping allegations

Meanwhile, Lord Coe has faced further criticism over his suggestion that a Sunday Times investigation which revealed a leaked document suggesting doping was rampant in athletics between 2001 and 2012 was a ‘declaration of war’ on the sport.

Michael Ashenden is one of the anti-doping experts who analysed 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 athletes and concluded many suspicious results had not been followed up. He has again hit out at the IAAF.

In a open letter to Coe, Ashenden wrote: ‘Does the IAAF pursue its anti-doping mandate with the same single-minded, all-consuming dedication that athletes adopt in their pursuit of winning? Based on what I saw in the leaked database, my view is ‘No.’

With the World Championships less than two weeks away, British Athletics have made a confusing choice of team captain in 400m runner Martyn Rooney, who was originally left out of the individual team and only got his spot by way of appeal.

He will lead a 63-strong team headed by Mo Farah, who on Wednesday announced he will race the Great North Run in Gateshead on September 13.