Court of Arbitration for Sport upholds the American sprinter's suspension but reduces it to 18 months
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The world 100m champion Christian Coleman’s anti-doping ban has been reduced from two years to 18 months. However, the American athlete will still miss the Tokyo Olympics because he will not be able to compete until November. Coleman had missed three drugs tests in the space of a year. Hence, he was initially hit with a two-year suspension after a ruling from the Athletics Integrity Unit. But after appealing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) he has had six months reduced from that ban.
The track and field sprinter was first provisionally suspended in June 2020 after missing the third test in December 2019. The athlete had taken responsibility for a first missed test on January 16, 2019. He, however, claimed the second – on April 26, 2019 – was due to a “filing failure”. Coleman further went on to say that he was only notified about a third missed test in December 2019, the following day.
Coleman took his challenge to the CAS. Now, the CAS has ruled Coleman’s ban, which was originally due to end on May 13, 2022, will now expire on November 14. He will thereby miss the Tokyo Olympics, which takes place from July 23rd to August 8th.
“In coming to its decision, the CAS Panel determined that Christian Coleman had indeed committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation under Article 2.4 of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, but found the athlete’s degree of negligence to be lower than that established in the Challenged Decision: the Athlete was not at home during the 60-minute time slot on the day of the out-of-competition doping control (9 December 2019), as he should have been, and the Athlete should have been on ‘high-alert’ on that day, given the two existing whereabout failures against him,” a CAS statement read.
“On the other hand, however, had the Athlete been called by the Doping Control Officer, he would have been able to return to his apartment during the 60-minute window and a test would have been concluded. Although a telephone call during the 60-minute window was not required by the rules, it was nevertheless reasonable for the Athlete to expect such a call, as a matter of standard practice among other Doping Control Officers.
“In conclusion, the CAS Panel determined that an 18-month period of ineligibility was the appropriate sanction in the circumstances.”
