Bolt and Jamaica team stripped of 2008 relay gold

Usain Bolt and Jamaica’s 2008 Olympic gold-winning 4×100 metre relay team have been stripped of their medals after Nesta Carter was found guilty of doping following re-analysis of a Beijing sample.

Carter raced in Jamaica’s heat and the final as they broke the world record en route to gold in China.

Carter’s sample taken before the final was found to contain banned substance methylhexaneamine.

The findings will tarnish one of athletics’ greatest legacies – Bolt no longer holding a triple of gold medals in sprint events across three successive games.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) revealed Carter had admitted to taking supplements “to help with recovery after training and build up muscle mass” advised by his coach Stephen Francis in a witness statement provided by his counsel.

An IOC statement added: “The athlete further stated that he was not aware of the substance methylhexaneamine.

“The Athlete remembered that at some point in his career, he was given some information on doping from the Jamaican national anti-doping organisation but he asserted that he did not remember having received any formal anti-doping training in his career.”

Alongside Bolt, Carter was also a member of Jamaica’s gold-medal winning relay squad at the 2012 Games in London, where they once again set a new world record of 36.84 seconds.

The IOC also confirmed Russian Tatiana Lebedeva has been stripped of a silver medal won in the long jump at Beijing 2008 after testing positive for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone (turinabol) under re-analysis.