In his Olympic career, Usain Bolt ran nine races, and won nine gold medals. However, the official record books will always say eight. One of the medals Bolt won in 2008 was stripped from him due to the positive doping test of a relay teammate, and he won’t be getting it back — ever.
Why was this medal taken away?
It happened eight years after the 4x100m relay in Beijing had been run, and it wasn’t Bolt’s fault. In 2016, the International Olympic Committee decided to retest athlete samples that had been submitted for the 2008 Olympics. During the testing, they discovered that the sample submitted by Nesta Carter, Bolt’s relay teammate who ran the first leg of the race, contained the stimulant methylhexaneamine, a banned substance. Jamaica was retroactively disqualified from the race, and all four relay teammates had their gold medals taken away.
It spoils Bolt’s perfect Olympics record
In 2008, 2012 and 2016, Usain Bolt participated in the same three Olympic events: 100m, 200m and the 4x100m relay. He won gold in each of those events in every Olympics he participated in, giving him a perfect gold medal record.