RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — Usain Bolt has insisted his legacy to athletics would survive unscathed even if former relay teammate Nesta Carter is found guilty of doping at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Sprint king Bolt achieved a ‘triple-triple’ by anchoring Jamaica to a runaway gold in Friday’s 4x100m final, but was then asked about the possibility of being stripped of one of his medals.

Reports surrounding Carter surfaced in the months leading up to the Rio Games, claiming that in re-tests of frozen blood and urine samples from Beijing, Carter, who ran the 4x100m relay with Bolt, tested positive for a banned substance.

“I don’t think it will tarnish my legacy,” said Bolt after leading Jamaica to a hat-trick of golds to complete his collection of 100m, 200m and 4x100m titles for the third straight Olympics.

“I’ve proved over and over again that I’ve done it clean. It will be disappointing, but it’s life. I have no control over that,” he added.

“I’ve worked hard every Olympics to prove I’m the greatest.”

Carter ran the lead-off leg for Jamaica’s 4x100m team when Bolt anchored them to a gold medal at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium, where Bolt took the sport by storm with his first treble.

Were Carter to be confirmed as a drugs cheat, all four members of the Jamaican team would be stripped of their medals.

The 30-year-old, who has won three world relay titles alongside Bolt, is thought to have tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine.

The International Olympic Committee re-tested 454 samples from Beijing, but so far only 14 Russians and one Spaniard have been named among 31 athletes whose sampled came back positive.

Carter would be the highest-profile athlete to be exposed and would be the latest blow to Jamaican athletics after Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson tested positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrine in 2014.