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The American, who won the men’s 100m at last year’s world championships in Doha, was provisionally suspended for three ‘location errors’ in June. The World Athletics Disciplinary Court upheld the charge and banned Coleman for two years, prior to May 14, 2020.
American sprinter Christian Coleman. Image: @ iaaforg / Twitter
PARIS – World champion sprinter Christian Coleman will miss next year’s Tokyo Olympics after being banned from athletics for two years for anti-doping violations, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced Tuesday.
The American, who won the men’s 100m at last year’s World Championships in Doha, was provisionally suspended for three ‘location failures’ in June.
The World Athletics Disciplinary Court upheld the charge and banned Coleman for two years, prior to May 14, 2020.
The 24-year-old has 30 days to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
He will miss next year’s Olympics in Japan, where he would have been among the favorites to win 100 meters of gold.
Coleman, who also holds the 60-meter world record, only ran in the 4×100-meter relay heats in his first Olympic appearance in Rio de Janeiro four years ago.
The AIU indicted Coleman for missing evidence in January and December 2019, as well as for a “failure to submit” last April.
To prove an anti-doping violation, an athlete must have made three location errors within a 12-month period.
Coleman previously escaped suspension on a technicality before last September’s World Championships.
Those three localization failures were recorded on June 6, 2018, January 16, 2019, and April 26, 2019.
However, Coleman had successfully argued that the first lost case should have been retroactive to the first day of the quarter, April 1, 2018, meaning that all three failures fell just outside the required 12-month period.
But now the test missed on December 9, 2019, added to the two failures in January and April, has seen Coleman suspended.
“I think the attempt on December 9 was a deliberate attempt to make me lose evidence,” Coleman said after he was indicted in June.
“Don’t tell me I ‘missed’ an exam if you sneak up on my door (you parked outside the door and walked in … there is no record of anyone coming to my house) without my knowledge.”
COLEMAN WAS ‘MORE THAN READY’ FOR THE TEST
Coleman said testers had visited him when he was shopping for Christmas gifts nearby, verifiable by bank statements and receipts.
“I was more than ready and available for the test and if I had gotten a phone call I could have taken the drug test and got on with my night,” he said.
“I only found out about this drug test attempt the next day, December 10, 2019, by AIU when I received this failed attempt report out of nowhere.”
The doping control officer’s report released by Coleman said the examiner had arrived at his apartment and had not received a response after “several strong blows were made every 10 minutes” for an hour.
A bell was pressed next to Coleman’s door, but no bell was heard. No attempt was made to reach Coleman by phone, according to the document.
“I have been contacted by phone literally every other time that I have been tested,” Coleman said. “Literally. (I don’t know) why this time was different. He even said he couldn’t hear the doorbell, so why don’t you call me?”
Coleman said he was tested two days later, adding: “I have had several tests done since then, including during quarantine.
“But of course that doesn’t matter, and the fact that I’ve never used drugs doesn’t matter either.”
Coleman last competed in the United States Indoor Championships in February, with a world-leading speed of 6.37 seconds in the 60m, just three hundredths of a second slower than his world record.
He also posted the best time in 100 meters last year – the 9.76 seconds he ran to win the world title.
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