Bolt loses gold from relay in Beijing
IOC says teammate tested positive
GENEVA — Usain Bolt has lost one of his nine Olympic gold medals because of a doping case involving Jamaican teammate Nesta Carter.
The IOC said Wednesday that Carter tested positive for methylhexaneamine, a banned stimulant, in re-analysis of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Olympic rules state that the entire relay team can be disqualified and stripped of medals if one runner fails a doping test.
Carter and Bolt were teammates on the winning 4x100meter team, which set a world record of 37.10 seconds. Carter ran the opening leg, and Bolt took the baton third on a team that included Michael Frater and Asafa Powell.
“The Jamaican team is disqualified,” the IOC said in a statement. “… the corresponding medals, medalist pins and diplomas are withdrawn and shall be returned.”
The relay title in Beijing completed the first of Bolt’s goldmedal sweeps in the 100, 200 and relay at three straight Olympics.
Bolt set world-record times for all three sprint titles at the Bird’s Nest, establishing himself as the defining superstar of Olympic track.
“I want to share it with my team,” said Bolt said after completing his hat trick in 2008. “It’s down to them that I beat the world record today. When you beat the relay world record, you feel four times happier.”
Bolt and Carter will retain their gold medals from Jamaica’s relay win at the 2012 London Olympics — in a record time of 36.84 seconds that stands today.
Bolt ran the final leg on that team. He took the baton from Yohan Blake, who served a ban in 2009 for ingesting the same substance as Carter.
Carter and Bolt also helped lower their relay world record between the Olympic titles, taking gold at the 2011 world championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 37.04.
Carter has teamed with Bolt on three straight world championship relay-winning teams, from 2011 through 2015. He also took an individual bronze in the 100 in 2013 in Moscow, behind Bolt and Justin Gatlin of the U.S.
Carter, who did not compete at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, faces a ban from the IAAF.
Trinidad and Tobago is in line to get the gold from 2008, Japan could be upgraded to silver, and Brazil could get bronze.
Jarrin Solomon, a native of Albuquerque and a member of the Trinidad and Tobago team the past two Games, sat out the Beijing Olympics with an illness.
In a separate ruling Wednesday, another former Olympic champ was stripped of two silver medals from the Beijing Games.
The IOC said Russian athlete Tatiana Lebedeva tested positive for the anabolic steroid turinabol in re-tests, and would be disqualified from her runnerup placings in the long jump and triple jump.
Lebedeva won long jump gold at the 2004 Athens Olympics and also previously won Olympic silver and bronze in triple jump.