Bolt says he is losing money over Jamaica’s doping controversy
KINGSTON, Jamaica — Sprint sensation Usain Bolt is unhappy with the recent controversy surrounding Jamaica’s doping issues saying he is losing money because of it.
Bolt said he recently lost a would-be sponsor, according to the UK’s Telegraph, and is therefore calling for an end to the “the misinformation and false claims about Jamaica’s doping problems”. He did not name the would-be sponsor.
John Fahey, the outgoing president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said that Jamaica could be ruled non-compliant with the WADA code because of failings in the country’s anti-doping programme, which could lead to its expulsion from the Olympic Games, The Telegraph reported.
The threat of that has since receded after Jamaica agreed to work with the United States Anti-Doping Agency to improve its anti-doping procedures, The Telegraph said, but Bolt said he was still suffering from the fall-out.
“A sponsor came up to us and was saying, ‘We’d like to sponsor you’. They then used an agency that does background checks to figure out if it’s viable to sponsor you and it came back that WADA had said that I would not be eligible to run at the next Olympics (Rio 2016),'” Bolt is reported as saying.
“That information is not correct, so there are a lot of things that are going on with this drugs thing that I really feel they need to clarify because, for me, it’s causing problems for me when it comes to making money from my sport.
“We really need to get this out of the way and move past this, get the rules down, get everything straight and get it down fast because we need to move on.
“In every sport there are drug scandals and problems but people get it done and move past it. That’s what we have to do because it’s really costing me money now, and I’m not too happy about that,” Bolt said.
The Telegraph reported that Bolt was backed by Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, who accused WADA of waging a campaign against countries like Jamaica and Kenya with their public criticisms and of behaving in a “ridiculous” manner.
