“I am not fully happy about the situation but rules are rules,” Bolt said, noting that Carter and Jamaica’s athletics authorities are planning to appeal the sanction.

“We have to sit and see how that works out.”

Bolt, Carter, Asafa Powell and Michael Frater were on the Jamaican relay squad that was disqualified after Carter tested positive for the banned substance methylhexaneamine in a retest of Beijing samples. All of them surrendered their medals on Friday.

Usain Bolt and Jamaica teammates ordered to return Olympic Games relay gold medals

The loss of the relay gold deprives Bolt of one of his “triple triples” after he won gold in the 100m, 200m and the 4x100m at Beijing and repeated the unprecedented feat in London in 2012 and again in Rio de Janeiro last year.

While conceding that the term “triple-triple” had “a nice ring to it” Bolt said he was looking forward.

“What can you do?” he said. “I’ve done all I wanted in the sport, I have really impacted the sport, I’ve really accomplished a lot so for me, I can’t complain.”

He emphasised that his priority was to avoid distractions in order to train properly in the coming months.

“This is my last season and I want to go out on a winning note,” said Bolt, who is heading for engagements in Australia next week said his immediate plans centre on “just training” for competition.

Usain Bolt Beijing Olympic relay gold medal in jeopardy as teammate Nesta Carter allegedly fails 2008 doping re-test

Bolt, who is reportedly willing to contribute to funding of Carter’s appeal, said he had not yet spoken to Carter since news of the lost gold medal, but stressed that there was “no bad blood” between them.

“I know it must be very hard, must be rough on him, I know how social media can be and I know how Jamaica is. So hopefully there is some love [being shown towards Carter],” said Bolt.

“It’s rough, things happen in life for reasons no one knows,” he said. “I hope he doesn’t take it to heart.”