Christian Coleman, an American sprinter who won the 100-meter title at last year’s world championships and had been the early favorite for the Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Games, was temporarily banned from competition by the Athletics Integrity Unit on Wednesday.
The AIU added that under World Anti-Doping Agency rules “proof that a telephone call was made is not a requisite element of a missed test and the lack of any telephone call does not give the athlete a defense to the assertion of a missed test.”
Some of Coleman’s earlier missed tests were not with the AIU but with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, whose own handbook for athletes says phone calls are usually reserved only for the last five minutes of a time slot and “to confirm the unavailability of the athlete, not to locate an athlete for testing.”
Coleman said in his post he has been appealing the latest missed test for six months with the AIU, which runs the anti-doping program for World Athletics.
Coleman won the 100 meters at the world championships in Doha, Qatar, last September after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency dropped his case for missed tests because of a technicality.
