Teammate’s doping strips Bolt of Beijing gold
A doping violation has trimmed Usain Bolt’s Olympic gold medal collection by one, but it should do nothing to tarnish his reputation.
Even though the Jamaican sprinter has to give back the gold he won in the four-by-100-metre relay in Beijing in 2008 after it was revealed on Wednesday that teammate Nesta Carter tested positive for a banned substance, Bolt’s simply a bystander in the mess.
Carter’s sample was one of 454 retested by the International Olympic Committee last year and it came back positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine. Carter ran the first leg of what was then a world-record-setting relay time, and also won gold four years later in London.
The decision by the International Olympic Committee to strip the team of the medal erases one of Bolt’s finest accomplishments: the triple-triple, gold medals in the 100- and 200-metre races, plus the relay, at three straight Olympics. Those nine gold medals tied him for the most won by any track athlete.
The fact his total now stands at eight shouldn’t change Bolt’s legacy. This is Carter’s problem and this is a problem for track and field in Jamaica.
When news first broke of the new testing and the positive sample before the 2016 Games, Bolt was disappointed, but he sounded like a man with eight more gold medals on his mantel.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Bolt told the Jamaica Gleaner last year. “For years you’ve worked hard to accumulate gold medals and you work hard to be a champion, so it’s heartbreaking, but it’s one of those things.
“Things happen in life. If it’s confirmed or whatever and I need to give back my gold medal, it’s not a problem to me.”