World’s fastest man suspended

Reigning world 100m 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.

The American sprinter is “suspended temporarily from participating in any competition or activity”, said the Athletics Integrity Unit, World Athletics’ anti-doping arm.

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 9.76sec to win 100m gold at last year’s World Championships in Doha, said he had unsuccessfully challenged an AIU finding that he missed a test on December 9, 2019. — AFP.

“And now this might result in me being suspended from other filing failures that occurred well over a year ago at this point,” Coleman said.

The 24-year-old is now barred from competition pending a hearing under World Athletics anti-doping rules, the AIU website said.

Coleman’s impassioned statement on Twitter was accompanied by what appeared to be a copy of his formal notification from the AIU of a missed test.

“I think the attempt on December 9th was a purposeful attempt to get me to miss a test,” Coleman said in a statement posted on his official Twitter account.

“Don’t tell me I ‘missed’ a test if you sneak up on my door (parked outside the gate and walked through… there’s no record of anyone coming to my place) without my knowledge,” Coleman said.

“I was more than ready and available for testing and if I had received a phone call I could’ve taken the drug test and carried on with my night,” he said.

“I was only made aware of this attempted drug test the next day on December 10th, 2019 by the AIU when I got this failed attempt report out of nowhere.” The Herald