KINGSTON (Reuters) - Nesta Carter, the 2013 world 100 meters bronze medalist, has lost his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the International Olympic Committee’s decision to strip him and his Jamaica men’s sprint relay team mates of their gold medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Switzerland-based court handed down the ruling six months after the appeal was heard in November. “The Panel concluded that the reanalysis of Nesta Carter’s sample collected following the race at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games confirmed the presence of methylhexaneamine (MHA) and that it 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,” CAS said in a statement on Thursday. Carter, 32, and team mates Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Michael Frater and Dwight Thomas will not be given back the gold medals they were ordered to return by the IOC in January, 2017.
Carter, who helped the Caribbean nation win gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and the 2011, 2013 and 2015 world championships, was not immediately available for comment. His Jamaica-based attorney Stuart Stimpson said a statement would be issued later on Thursday.
“The rules are the rules,” three-times Olympic 100 and 200 meters champion Bolt told Reuters.
“But at the end of the day the joy of winning that relay gold medal in Beijing 2008 with my team mates will last forever,” said world record-holder Bolt, who retired last year and now has eight Olympic gold medals to his name.
Frater, who ran the second leg in Beijing 10 years ago, reacted with disappointment to the ruling.
“Obviously, I’m very disappointed I thought the case was long overdue for a decision and it was dragged out, but if that’s the decision that they are sticking by, I just will have to live with it, but I am very disappointed with it,” Frater said.
The CAS ruling came almost two years after news broke that Carter’s was part of a batch of 454 samples from the 2008 Beijing Games which the IOC ordered to be re-tested.
Carter, the sixth fastest man in history with a time of 9.78 seconds for 100 meters recorded in 2010, was cited for returning a positive test in a re-tested sample from the 2008 Olympic Games where he was lead-off runner in Jamaica’s sprint relay team. Carter still has three world championship sprint relay gold medals in addition to the London 2012 Olympic gold, which Jamaica won in a world record time of 36.84 seconds.
Reporting by Kayon Raynor, editing by Ed Osmond