USAIN BOLT has been handed a lifeline to hang on to his triple triple crown after Jamaica revealed on Thursday that it may appeal against its entire 4x100m relay squad being stripped of Olympic gold from Beijing after Nesta Carter failed a drugs test.
It came hours after Carter confirmed he would be lodging his own appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
But the sport’s governing body the IAAF now want to re-test all of his samples held in storage after re-analysis of his 2008 test showed up traces of a banned substance.
They must now wait for the result of any legal outcomes from Carter’s appeal but it could mean Bolt losing further medals if any of them come back positive.
Carter along with Michael Frater, Asafa Powell and sprint superstar Bolt won gold at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in 2008 in a then world record time of 37.10secs.
But it emerged last June that retests of frozen samples had allegedly uncovered traces of the banned stimulant methylhexanamine in Carter from Beijing under the new biological passport system which tracks any changes in an athlete’s system for up to eight years.
When he was first tested after the final nothing suspicious was found. It means the entire Jamaican 4x100m boys including Bolt have been stripped of their gold medals even though there is no evidence of wrong-doing by his team-mates.
At the Rio Olympics last summer Bolt achieved the triple-triple, winning 100m gold, 200m gold and the 4x100m title again after similar success at London 2012 and Beijing.
Now he has been left with eight gold medals not nine having brought the curtain down on his Olympic career and no longer equals the all-time record of nine on the track set by American sprinter Carl Lewis and Finnish legend Paavo Nurmi.
He will retire after this summer's World Championships at the Olympic Stadium in London where he only plans to compete in the 100m.
Mike Fennell, head of the Jamaican Olympic Association which has already been asked to secure and return the gold medals to the IOC, insisted yesterday: "We have to decide what the best legal process is.
"It is a team and we are interested in ensuring they are properly protected and given a fair chance of clearing their names."
The IAAF says it will retest samples held in storage from other events for Carter as well as looking at other sanctions.
He was in the 4x100m team with Bolt that clinched gold at London 2012 although it is understood a re-test of that sample has come back negative.
But the 31 year-old, who was not in the Jamaican suad in Rio, was also the first-leg specialist helping Bolt to win gold medals at the 2011, 2013 and 2015 world championships.
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A spokesman said: "Once the IOC's case and any appeal is concluded for the disqualification of Nesta Carter from the men’s 4x100m event at the Olympic Games Beijing 2008 for an anti-doping rule violation, the IAAF will take it to the Jamaican federation to determine Carter’s sanction beyond this disqualification."
Jamaican athletics chiefs on Thursday admitted that the decision to strip the entire team of their medals came as a shock.
It is also another stain on a country which has been criticised for its poor anti-doping system.
Dr Warren Blake, president of the Jamaican Athletics Association, who met Carter for a meeting on Wednesday, said: "I didn't rule out that he would be found guilty, but my personal opinion is that I am surprised that they chose this route.
"This is something that happened from 2008, so I don't think it will have an effect on Jamaica's reputation going forward.
"We have done everything that was asked of us in sorting out the issues with Jamaican anti-doping."
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