(UDHAYAM, LAUSANNE) – Usain Bolt will have to hand back one of his nine Olympic gold medals after Jamaican team-mate Nesta Carter tested positive for a banned substance.
Carter was part of the Jamaican quartet that won the 4x100m in Beijing in 2008. Carter, 31, was also part of the squad that won the event in London five years ago and helped Jamaica win at the World Championships in 2011, 2013 and 2015. He ran the first leg for Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team in Beijing, which also included Michael Frater, Asafa Powell and Bolt. His was one of 454 selected doping samples retested by the International Olympic Committee last year, and has been found to contain the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine.
Bolt is considered the greatest sprinter of all time, having won an unprecedented treble of consecutive golds in the 100m, 200m and 4×100 relay in three straight Olympics. He is also credited with being a key factor in maintaining a global interest in athletics at a time when the sport has been ravaged by doping scandals and a drop in popularity.
The team won in a then-world record of 37.10 seconds, ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Japan, who could have their medals upgraded. Brazil would then receive bronze. Carter was tested on the evening of the Beijing final in 2008 but that was found at the time to contain no “adverse analytical finding”. More than 4,500 tests were carried out at those Games, with nine athletes caught cheating.
The IOC has asked the Jamaican Olympic Committee to collect the medals from the athletes and send them to the Olympic body.
