Warren Blake, president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), believes the country will bounce back from the impact of a tarnished image following the International Olympic Committee (IOC) findings against sprinter Nesta Carter.
The IOC on Wednesday made the decision to disqualify Carter from the 2008 Olympic Games and strip the country of the 4x100m relay gold medal, after his samples from the Beijing Games were alleged to have traces of the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine.
“It will have an impact on us, but as I said before, Jamaica will bounce back because JADCO had put in quite a number of changes to ensure that, going forward, track and field is really done according to international standards.
“So it will have a temporary effect because people will say we lost a medal because of doping, but I think we will bounce back from that,” Blake told journalists, while attending the launch of the Gibson McCook Relays yesterday.
As a result of the decision, the famous “triple triple” record of the incomparable Usain Bolt has now been diminished, as his gold medal tally at the past three Olympics now stands at eight. Asafa Powell, Michael Frater and Dwight Thomas were also a part of the record-breaking team which clocked 37.10 seconds.
Carter, who ran on the squad, was one of 454 doping samples retrospectively tested by the IOC last year under new methods that involve frozen samples, and his was found to contain methylhexaneamine.
The native of Banana Ground in Manchester was one of 31 athletes who returned positive results from the 2008 Games.
The 31-year-old was also part of the team that achieved successive World records at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu and at the 2012 London Olympics. He also represented at the 2013 and 2015 championships, where he won an individual bronze medal in the 100m event at the former.
Blake believes Carter, who is the sixth fastest man of all time with a time of 9.78, and his legal team have “good grounds” on which to lodge an appeal, and pointed out the JAAA will be doing what it can to offer support.
“This definitely affects Usain Bolt’s legacy [because] he won’t be able to call himself the triple champion, so it will affect him.
“The reality though is that the damage is just a part of a process; we are really very saddened to know that he (Carter) didn’t win the case at the IOC, but he is entitled to his appeal and his lawyers are examining whether they are going to appeal or not. I think they have good grounds for an appeal and he has 21 days to lodge such appeal,” Blake noted.
“We are in discussions with his team and we plan to support him in his quest. I can’t say the full extent of the support because the main thing that he really needs now is some financial support. As you know, the defence costs quite a bit and the appeal is going to cost even more to CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport). So we are doing the best we can,” he ended.
(Jamaica — Observer)
