So now after all: two-year suspension for sprint world champion Coleman

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Christian Coleman during the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha

Photo: HANNAH MCKAY / REUTERS

100 meter world champion Christian Coleman has been banned for two years for missing three doping tests.

This was announced by the independent integrity commission AIU of the world athletics association World Athletics (WA).

This means that the 24-year-old American will, among other things, miss the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year.

Coleman now has 30 days to appeal the suspension to the CAS International Court of Sports.

The AIU regards it as proven that Coleman committed three so-called reporting violations within one year.

Coleman had already been suspended in June.

It wasn't the first time that the Sprinter was threatened with a ban.

At the beginning of September 2019, a formal error led to the sprinter's acquittal because one of three of the so-called missed tests was outside the one-year period.

A little later, Coleman secured the world title over the 100 meters in Doha in 9.76 seconds.

"At best reckless"

Coleman said a Christmas shopping was fatal.

He had missed another test in December 2019.

Coleman, he himself says, did Christmas shopping five minutes away from home, but the inspectors did not call him, he wrote on Twitter at the time.

"If you had called me, I would have been ready for a test straight away."

Athletes must indicate in advance where they can be reached over a longer period of time so that unannounced doping tests can be carried out at any time.

In a statement on its website, the AIU writes that Coleman's behavior is "at best reckless and at worst reckless".

And further: "The fact is that he got away as close as possible in the previous case. You could have thought that he had learned something from the experience."

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