American sprinter Christian Coleman has seen his suspension by the Athletics Integrity Unit (UIA) reduced to eighteen months after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), announced the body responsible for the sports justice located in Lausanne.
Crowned 100-meter world champion in 2019, 25-year-old Coleman was suspended by the UIA for two years from May 14, 2020, due to three breaches of his anti-doping whereabouts obligations in 2019 Even lightened, his sanction still prohibits him from participating in the Tokyo Olympics, from July 23 to August 8.
The degree of negligence deemed “less serious”
In a statement from the CAS, it is explained that even if Christian Coleman had indeed violated article 2.4 of the anti-doping regulations and should have been vigilant, his degree of negligence “Was less serious” than what was originally established. CAS believes that if the official in charge of testing had taken the trouble to make a phone call to Coleman when he arrived at his home, he could have returned home within the allotted time and a doping test could have been carried out.
Even if nothing in the regulations obliges an anti-doping officer to call, the CAS committee recalls that this is a common practice and that Coleman was entitled to hope to be called. “In conclusion, the CAS panel considered that the eighteen-month suspension was an appropriate sanction given the circumstances”, the statement said.