The sprinter Nesta Carter has appealed against the decision to strip him and a Jamaican team featuring Usain Bolt of an Olympic 4x100m relay gold medal due to doping, the court of arbitration for sport has announced.
Carter tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine at the 2008 Beijing Olympics after his anti-doping sample was reanalysed, meaning the entire Jamaican relay team lost their title. That included Bolt, meaning he could no longer claim to have done the triple-treble at the Olympics and is instead now an eight-time gold medallist.
A statement from Cas on Friday said that Carter was seeking “to set aside the challenged decision in order for the Jamaican team to be reinstated as gold medallists”.
It added: “A Cas arbitration procedure is in progress. First, the parties will exchange written submissions and a panel of three arbitrators will be constituted. The panel will then issue directions with respect to the holding of a hearing. Following the hearing, the panel will deliberate and at a later date, it will issue a decision in the form of an arbitral award.”
Cas did not give an indication of how long the process was likely to take.
The International Olympic Committee announced the decision on Carter in January after a hearing in November to discuss Carter’s results following retests of 454 frozen blood and urine samples from the 2008 Games.
Carter, the sixth fastest 100m runner of all time, helped Jamaica set a then-world-record time of 37.10sec in Beijing, as Bolt won the first of the 100m, 200m and 4x100m treble. But under the rules of the IAAF, athletics’ governing body, all four members of Jamaica’s 4x100m squad in 2008, which was made up of Bolt, Carter, Asafa Powell and Michael Frater, will now lose their medals.
The 31-year-old has been a vital member of Jamaica’s 4x100m relay team for nearly a decade, running the first leg as they won gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Games and the 2011, 2013 and 2015 world championships, but missed the 2016 Rio Olympics.