Coleman may miss Tokyo Games over missed drugs test

LOS ANGELES • Reigning world 100 metres champion Christian Coleman was provisionally suspended yesterday over a missed drugs test, putting him at risk of a two-year ban that would rule him out of next year's Tokyo Olympics.

According to the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which is the anti-doping arm of World Athletics, the American sprinter has been "suspended temporarily from participating in any competition or activity".

Coleman, who only narrowly avoided being banned last year after three violations of anti-doping "whereabouts" rules across 2018 and 2019, revealed details of his latest missed test on Twitter.

The world's fastest man, who clocked 9.76 seconds to win the 100m gold at last year's world championships in Doha, Qatar said he had unsuccessfully challenged an AIU finding that he missed a test on Dec 9, 2019.

"And now this might result in me being suspended from other filing failures that occurred well over a year ago at this point," he tweeted.

The 24-year-old is now barred from competition pending a hearing under World Athletics' anti-doping rules.

He escaped suspension on a technicality ahead of last September's world championships despite committing three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period.

Those offences were recorded on June 6, 2018, Jan 16, 2019 and April 26, 2019.

However, Coleman had successfully argued that the first missed case should have been backdated to the first day of the quarter - April 1, 2018 - meaning that the three failures fell just outside the required 12-month period.

But news that he missed another meeting with testers in December means that his offences in January and April of last year now come into play. Any combination of three whereabouts failures - either missing a test or failing to file paperwork on time - within a 12-month period is deemed a doping offence punishable by a two-year suspension by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Coleman, however, has denied he missed the test on purpose, claiming he was out shopping for Christmas presents and insisting there was no attempt to reach out to him on the day itself before protesting his innocence.

"I think the attempt on Dec 9 was a purposeful attempt to get me to miss a test," he tweeted. "Don't tell me I 'missed' a test if you sneak up on my door... there's no record of anyone coming to my place) without my knowledge.

"I was only made aware of this attempted drug test the next day by the AIU when I got this failed attempt report out of nowhere.

"I've been tested multiple times since, even during quarantine. But of course, that doesn't matter, and the fact I have never taken drugs doesn't matter either."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE