Bolt slams decision to reduce Gay's doping ban for co-operating with USADA

Jamaican sprint superstar Usain Bolt has slammed the decision to reduce fellow sprinter Tyson Gay's doping ban because he co-operated with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Gay and Bolt's fellow Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, both, failed drug tests for oxilofrine in July 2013. Gay was given a one-year ban and Powell was initially suspended for 18 months.

Bolt said that it is sending a bad message into the sport that one can do it, but if one co-operate with them they would reduce the sentence, The BBC reported.

Former 100 metre and 200-metre world champion Gay could have been banned for up to two years but received a lighter penalty because of his co-operation. Powell claimed that his ruling was unfair and unjust, and said that a legal supplement he took, Epiphany D1, was contaminated.

Powell reportedly appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and his ban was subsequently reduced to six months.

Six-time Olympic champion Bolt does not agree that the athletics world governing body, the IAAF, should have accepted Gay's reduced ban and said that he does not consider it the right way to go because they are telling people that this is the way out. Bolt added that it is a way of beating the system.