World 100m champion Christian Coleman is to miss next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games after being banned for two years for breaching whereabout rules, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Tuesday.
Coleman, who narrowly escaped a ban last year for missing three doping tests, was provisionally suspended by the AIU in June.
“We regret to say that we do not think there is any mitigation which can fairly be relied upon to reduce the sanction from the two-year period,” the AIU said in a statement on its Web site. “Unfortunately, we see this case as involving behavior by the athlete as very careless at best and reckless at worst.”
Photo: AP
Coleman’s representative, Emanuel Hudson said in a statement that the sprinter would appeal the ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
“The decision of the disciplinary tribunal established under the World Athletics Rules is unfortunate and will be immediately appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport,” Hudson said. “Mr Coleman has nothing further to say until such time as the matter can be heard in the court of jurisdiction.”
The US sprinter claimed at the time of his provisional suspension that anti-doping officials had not followed procedure when he missed them after going Christmas shopping on Dec. 9 last year, at a time when he had said he would be at home.
Doping control officers testified before a disciplinary tribunal that they were present during the whole of the allotted hour of 7:15pm to 8:15pm on Dec. 9 in front of his house.
Coleman in turn testified that he had arrived home from Christmas shopping shortly before the end of the one-hour period.
However, shopping receipts showed that Coleman had purchased 16 items from a Walmart Supercenter at 8:22pm, the AIU said.
“We do not accept the athlete’s evidence. It is obvious that in fact the athlete did not go home until after making his 8:22pm purchase. We are comfortably satisfied that this is what happened,” it said.
Coleman had complained that the doping control officers had not called him on the night of Dec. 9, but the AIU said that the officers were not required to.
“It might be thought he would have learned from this experience... In fact, that is not at all what happened,” the AIU said.
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