Bolt loses gold over team-mate’s doping
USAIN BOLT has been stripped of one of his nine Olympic gold medals because of a doping offence committed by his team-mate Nesta Carter.
The Jamaican no longer owns the hallowed ‘triple-triple’ of Olympic sprint titles after being told to hand back the 100m relay gold medal won at Beijing 2008 alongside Carter.
Bolt had realised this was a possibility after it emerged last June that Carter had retrospectively failed a drugs test from the Games in China nine years ago.
Amid great fanfare at the Rio Olympics just two months later, Bolt won 100m, 200m and 100m relay gold as he had in 2008 and 2012 — becoming the first man in history to win three sprint titles at three successive Olympics.
But that achievement proved fleeting with the confirmation yesterday from the International Olympic Committee that the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine was identified in a urine sample Carter gave in 2008.
Medical opinion varies concerning the potency of methylhexaneamine, with one prominent professor claiming it is only slightly stronger than a cup of coffee. Nevertheless, it has proven powerful enough to leave the most recognisable sportsman in the world devastated.
Last summer Bolt, 30, admitted he was rocked by Carter’s doping. ‘It’s heartbreaking because, over the years, you’ve worked hard to accumulate gold medals and worked hard to be a champion, but it’s just one of those things,’ he said. ‘Things happen in life, so when it’s confirmed or whatever, if I need to give back my gold medal, I’d have to give it back.’
Jamaica’s gold medals will be re-allocated to Trinidad and Tobago, with Japan promoted to silver and Brazil bronze.
Carter ran the first leg for Jamaica and Bolt anchored them to gold inside the Bird’s Nest stadium where he announced himself as a superstar.
While Bolt is faultless and a victim of his teammate’s cheating, Carter’s use of performance enhancing drugs casts a shadow over the legitimacy of Jamaica’s sprint medal factory.
In 2013, Veronica CampbellBrown, Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson tested positive after inadvertent breaches — leading to suspicions as to how this tiny island became so dominant on the world stage.
A former head of Jamaica’s anti-doping agency exposed negligible levels of drug testing in the country in the lead-up to London 2012.
The confirmation of Carter’s positive doping tests means Bolt, whose 100m world record is 9.58sec, stands alone as the only man to have run below 9.79sec and not be tainted by a drugs ban. The other five — Tyson Gay (9.69sec), Yohan Blake (9.69sec), Asafa Powell (9.72sec) Justin Gatlin (9.74sec) and now Carter (9.78sec) — have all admitted doping violations.
At London 2012, Carter was in the 4x100m team again anchored by Bolt which won gold in a world-record time of 36.84sec, although that medal is not thought to be under threat.
Although Bolt has stated that he will willingly hand his medal back, there remains the possibility the other men in the Jamaican 4x100m team from 2008 — Powell and Michael Frater — could appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. They have 21 days in which to do this.
When American Marion Jones was stripped of her two relay medals from the Sydney Games for doping offences, her teammates kept theirs after a protracted legal battle. However, all members of the victorious American 4x400m relay squad at the 2000 Sydney Olympics were subsequently stripped of their medals after Antonio Pettigrew admitted a doping offence.
This disappointment could provide an added layer of motivation for Bolt as he begins his final season in the sport, which will culminate at the World Championships in London this summer.