(Reuters) - Nesta Carter, the 2013 world 100 metres bronze medallist, has lost his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the International Olympic Committee's decision to strip him and his Jamaica men's sprint relay team mates of their gold medals from the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Switzerland-based court handed down the ruling six months after the appeal was heard in November.
“The Panel concluded that the reanalysis of Nesta Carter’s sample collected following the race at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games confirmed the presence of methylhexaneamine (MHA) and that it could not accept any of the arguments raised by Nesta Carter contending that the test results should be ignored or the IOC DP decision should otherwise be overturned for certain alleged failures," CAS said in a statement on Thursday. "The CAS Panel noted that this case was strictly limited to the consequences related to the Beijing Games and issues linked with fault or negligence are not relevant since sanctions such as ineligibility or disqualification from other events were not at stake here."
Carter, 32, and team mates Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Michael Frater and Dwight Thomas will not be given back the gold medals they were ordered to return by the IOC in January, 2017.
Carter, who helped the Caribbean nation win gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and the 2011, 2013 and 2015 world championships, was not immediately available for comment.
The CAS ruling came almost two years after news broke that Carter's was part of a batch of 454 samples from the 2008 Beijing Games which the IOC ordered to be re-tested.
Carter, the sixth fastest man in history with a time of 9.78 seconds for 100 metres recorded in 2010, was cited for returning a positive test in a re-tested sample from the 2008 Olympic Games where he was lead-off runner in Jamaica's sprint relay team.
Carter still has three world championship sprint relay gold medals in addition to the London 2012 Olympic gold, which Jamaica won in a world record time of 36.84 seconds.
(Reporting by Kayon Raynor, editing by Ed Osmond)