Usain Bolt loses an Olympic gold medal as Jamaica teammate ruled to have been doping
by Des Bieler (The Washington Post)
May 31, 2018
Usain Bolt is no longer perfect in his three trips to the Olympics, and he'll have to settle for a haul of just eight gold medals. The sprinting superstar, who retired in August, lost a piece of glory from the Games when an international sports tribunal upheld a ruling Thursday that a Jamaica teammate was doping during the men's 4×100 relay race at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Nesta Carter had run the first leg of that race, with Bolt going third in an effort that not only got Jamaica a gold medal but set a world record. However, in an effort to prevent dopers from competing at the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, the International Olympic Committee had dozens of athletes' samples from the 2008 and 2012 Games retested, using improved methods, and Carter was found to have had traces of a banned stimulant in his system.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, dismissed Carter's appeal Thursday, which disqualifies the entire 2008 Jamaican relay team, including Asafa Powell and Michael Frater. In a statement, the CAS said that a three-member panel, composed of officials from Israel, Italy and the United Kingdom, "concluded that the reanalysis of Nesta Carter's sample collected following the race at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games confirmed the presence of methylhexaneamine."
The panel "could not accept any of the arguments raised by Nesta Carter contending that the test results should be ignored or the IOC DP decision should otherwise be overturned for certain alleged failures," the CAS said.
"The rules are the rules but at the end of the day the joy of winning that relay gold Medal in Beijing 2008 with my teammates will last forever," Bolt wrote on social media Thursday, posting a photo of himself with the other three.
Thus the Olympic record books will not show that Bolt went nine for nine in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 4×100 relay over the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Games. That, of course, won't do much to sully his reputation as the greatest sprinter, and arguably the greatest track and field athlete, of all time, particularly given his dominance in the individual events.
Bolt holds world records in all three of those events, setting the marks in the 100 (9.58) and 200 (19.19) in 2009, while his Jamaican squad - including Carter - posted a time of 36.84 at the 2012 Olympics. The 31-year-old also holds the record in the 150 meters (14.35), although that distance is not formally recognized by track's governing body, International Association of Athletics Federations.
In addition to offering an upbeat comment Thursday on the lost gold medal, Bolt took to social media to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first time he set the record in the 100. He would go on to better that mark 10 weeks later with a time of 9.69 at the 2008 Olympics before running his 9.58 the following year at the world championships in Berlin.
With the disqualification of Bolt's Jamaica team, 2008 Olympic gold medals in the men's 4×100 will go to Trinidad and Tobago, which finished second on the track in Beijing, with Japan getting silver medals and Brazil moving up to bronze.
TT relay to get Olympic gold after JA’s Carter loses appeal
by Andrew Gioanetti (T&T Newsday)
TT’s 4x100m team will receive gold medals a decade after the Beijing Olympics after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) yesterday dismissed Nesta Carter’s appeal against the ruling to strip Jamaica of its relay title.
Carter appealed the CAS decision in February after testing positive for methylhexaneamine, a banned stimulant, in 2016, eight years after the sample was collected.
Marc Burns, Keston Bledman, Richard Thompson, Emmanuel Callender and Aaron Armstrong were on the TT relay team that was initially awarded silver after clocking 38.06 seconds. With the ruling, Japan and Brazil were confirmed as the silver and bronze medal winners, respectively.
The result of the decision also meant Michael Frater and Asafa Powell lost their gold medals along with Bolt, who can no longer lay claim to a historic gold medal three-peat (100, 200 and 4x100m) at three consecutive Olympic games (2008-2016).
The CAS judgment noted: “We (do) not accept any of the arguments raised by Nesta Carter contending that the test results should be ignored or that the decision should otherwise be overturned for certain alleged failures.”
It continued: “Accordingly, the CAS panel dismissed the appeal and the decision is confirmed.”
Carter was also part of the Jamaica 4x100m team that beat TT for gold at the 2012 London Olympics, as well as the 4x100 relay teams that won gold at the World Championships in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
The news was both expected and welcomed by the TT team.
Speaking with Newsday yesterday, Burns said while receiving the gold medals in 2008 would have been more impactive, he and his team-mates can celebrate their positions among the world’s elite runners.
“At that time Trinidad and Tobago’s achievement would have been more monumental with the medal haul… and (my) team-mates could have benefited financially with the gold medal,” the 35-year-old said.
“But, the fact still remains with this confirmation, the team will be part of an elite fraternity of Olympic gold medallists, and that title cannot be taken from us.” Burns sympathised with Bolt and the other Jamaican athletes who were penalised for Carter’s actions. “(However) it is still disheartening for clean athletes to lose out when we try do things the right way,” he said.
“Bolt’s legacy has already been cemented as one of the greatest athletes to ever grace the sport of track and field and his achievements will remain for generations to come.”
Newsday also spoke with TT Olympic Committee (TTOC) president Brian Lewis who said the local governing body will wait until it receives official correspondence from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) before making a full statement. Pending this communication, Lewis said “it’s (still) one of those moments where it’s not an overwhelming sense of jubilation or triumph” given the time lapse and the repercussions for the Jamaican athletes.
“It will always be a bitter sweet scenario because we are one Caribbean people,” he said. Lewis lauded the IOC for its “determination to address the issue of doping in sport.”
“The T&T Olympic Committee, which is in fact the de facto national anti-doping organisation at this point in time, remains firmly committed to clean sport and clean athletes,” said Lewis.
