Former Vol’s ban lasts through Tokyo Games
GENEVA — The man who had been expected to succeed Usain Bolt as Olympic champion will miss the Tokyo Games after failing Friday in an appeal to overturn his ban for missed doping tests.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport cut current 100meter dash world champion Christian Coleman’s ban from two years to 18 months, but it won’t expire until November, three months after the Olympics.
Coleman’s time of 9.76 seconds to win the 2019 world title was the fastest in the past five years, and 0.05 second quicker than Bolt when he won a third straight Olympic gold medal in 2016. Bolt, however, still holds the world record in the event, running 9.58 at the 2009 world track and field championships in Berlin.
Coleman has never tested positive, but the 25-yearold American sprinter broke antidoping rules by missing three no-notice attempts to take samples from him in a one-year period. The panel of three judges said 18 months “was the appropriate sanction in the circumstances” because Coleman was not entirely at fault for one of the missed tests.
“While I appreciate that the arbitrators correctly found that I am a clean athlete, I am obviously disappointed that I will miss the Olympic Games this summer,” Coleman, an Atlanta native and former University of Tennessee athlete, said in a released statement.
The statement cited an
extract from the unpublished CAS verdict saying “there is no evidence of the athlete seeking to avoid being tested, or masking drug use, or using drugs or otherwise seeking to evade doping controls.”
In its own statement, the court said it was “reasonable for the athlete to expect” a telephone call from a sample collection official to return to his apartment during the 60-minute period he said he would be available on Dec. 9, 2019. A call such as that is not required within the antidoping rules, the judges acknowledged.
The court also noted Coleman “should have been on ‘high-alert’ on that day, given the two existing ‘whereabout’ failures against him.”
He will be clear to compete in the 2022 season, which includes the world championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Coleman won the 2019 world title in Doha, Qatar, after being cleared on a technicality to run because of missed tests. He ran the three fastest 100 times in the world that year, including his gold run in Doha, which was the fastest 100 since American sprinter Justin Gatlin’s 9.74 in 2015.