Bolt stripped of his Beijing relay gold medal
USAIN BOLT is no longer a triple-triple Olympic champion after his Jamaican sprint relay team-mate Nesta Carter was disqualified from the 2008 Games for failing a drugs test.
The 31-year-old Carter ran the first leg in the 4x100 metres relay in Beijing, helping Jamaica to a world record of 37.10 seconds and Bolt to his third Olympic gold medal.
But the International Olympic Committee have now stripped the Jamaicans of that victory after a reanalysis of Carter’s anti-doping sample tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine.
Bolt, who repeated the 100-200-relay triple in London and Rio, and his team-mates have known this day was coming since last summer, when rumours of Carter’s positive test first sur- faced. Bolt, Carter, Michael Frater, Asafa Powell and Dwight Thomas, who ran in the heats, will now have to return their gold medals, with Trinidad & Tobago, Japan and Brazil the new one-two-three.
Methylhexaneamine is an energy-boosting ingredient in many dietary supplements and several Jamaican athletes have failed tests for it before.
Given its prevalence, though, sanctions tend to be on the lenient side, with bans of three to six months common. The loss of an Olympic gold is an unusually strict punishment.
While there may be some sympathy for Carter and company, news that Tatyana Lebedeva has also been caught in the IOC’s 2008 and 2012 retesting programme will not attract much pity.
The winner of 17 global medals, Lebedeva claimed silver medals in the long jump and triple jump in Beijing but now loses those after a positive test for the steroid turinabol.
Now 40, the Russian will keep the long jump gold she won in Athens in 2004 and triple jump silver she won in Sydney four years earlier. Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare should inherit her long jump silver from Beijing, with Jamaican Chelsea Hammond stepping up to bronze.
With the original bronzemedal winner Hrysopiyi Devetzi of Greece already banned from triple jump, Lebedeva’s silver should go to Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan, and Cuba’s Yargelis Savigne will now get bronze.