Usain Bolt could be stripped of one of his six Olympic titles after allegations that one of his Jamaican 4x100metres teammates with whom he won gold at the 2008 Games has tested positive for a banned substance.
The world’s greatest track-and-field star is facing the devastating news that Nesta Carter is reportedly among those to fail a drugs test in the re-analysis of urine and blood samples from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
Carter is understood to be on the list of 31 athletes who failed those retests, which took place last month using the latest scientific techniques in order to weed out drugs cheats ahead of Rio 2016.
Carter, the sixth-fastest 100m runner of all time, ran the opening leg of the Olympic final eight years ago as Jamaica stormed to victory in a world-record 37.10 sec, helping Bolt to a clean sweep of sprint titles as he burst on to the global stage at his first Games.
Unless Carter manages to clear his name, all four members of the Jamaican relay team – which also included Michael Frater and Asafa Powell – could lose their Beijing medals, ruining Bolt’s perfect Olympic record.
Such a punishment would also destroy Bolt’s attempt to complete an unprecedented hat-trick of 100m, 200m and 4x100m triumphs this summer in Rio. There is no suggestion that Bolt has committed any anti-doping offence.
Mike Fennell, the President of the Jamaica Olympic Association, refused to confirm or deny the news, while Carter’s agent has failed to respond to repeated attempts to contact him.
Both the International Olympic Committee and International Association of Athletics Federations declined to comment.
Traces of a prohibited substance were found when the IOC tested Carter’s ‘A’ sample from the 2008 Games as part of a batch of 454 people they identified as likely to compete at this summer’s Rio Olympics.
It is understood that his ‘B’ sample test is due to be re-analysed in Lausanne later this month.
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