Two years of ban for Mo Katir for skipping three anti-doping controls

Mo Katir is as fast on the slopes as his lawyer, Borja Osés, is in the offices of the anti-doping authorities.

Only nine days after the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the office that manages anti-doping in the international federation (WA), announced his provisional suspension for three location failures for anti-doping controls, the best Spanish athlete has accepted a two-year sanction.

Katir, the best world athlete in 5,000m, according to

silver medalist at the Budapest World Cup after Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and national record holder in 1,500m, 3,000m and 5,000m, has sought to accelerate the deadlines of his process to comply its sanction as soon as possible.

The athlete, bronze medalist in the 1,500m at the 2022 Oregon World Championships, will be able to return to competition on February 7, 2026, at the age of 27.

In his absence, a European Championship (Rome, June 2024), an Olympic Games and a World Cup (Tokyo 2025) will be held.

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Mo Katir, provisionally suspended for skipping three anti-doping controls

“On Tuesday of this week (February 13, 2024), the 25-year-old middle distance runner returned a signed form admitting an anti-doping rule violation and accepting the consequences, acknowledging a violation of rule 2.4 (Location Violations by of an athlete in a group of athletes subjected to controls) of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Regulations (ADR),” the AIU says in a statement.

“Katir admitted to having committed three location failures in 12 months, starting on February 28, 2023, specifically: a registration failure on February 28, 2023;

a failure to control and register on April 3, 2023;

and a failure to control and register on October 10, 2023. Your two-year period of ineligibility will begin from the date of your provisional suspension and will therefore extend from February 7, 2024 to February 6, 2024. February 2026. All of Katir's results and related awards since October 10, 2023 have been disqualified.”

In a statement, Katir accepts that he is so absent-minded that just as he sometimes leaves his spikes at the hotel and has to borrow them from other athletes to compete in a rally, he also sometimes forgets to update his ADAMS, the platform of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in which the best athletes in the world, those included in a control

by international federations, must indicate quarterly where they will be each day at least during the time they choose to be subjected to controls out of competition.

When changes in plans or unexpected trips arise, athletes can update their data through the ADAMS app or, if it is not working, through an email.

An unexpected trip to Lisbon to be with his sick girlfriend on February 28, two weeks after breaking the European 3,000m 200m track record in France (7m 24.68s);

a technical failure of the ADAMS system on April 3, when he was training in Font Romeu and the controller who went to his home in Mula, Murcia, the place indicated in his location, found himself alone with his father, as in February, and a confusion between eight in the morning and eight in the afternoon on October 10, were the reasons given before the AIU to justify their errors.

None of them convinced the agency: the unscheduled plane ticket to Lisbon was not taken out on February 28 at 8:30 in the morning, as he explained, but two days before.

The ADAMS app was not down every day of his stay in Font Romeu, and at the same moment, 8:30 p.m. on October 10, when the controller was waiting for him in Mula with his father on October 10 while he training in Fuente Álamo, he changed the control time that day to leave it at 8 in the morning.

Katir's acceptance strategy has been determined by the difficulty that his lawyer saw in dismantling the accusations and in the warning from the Spanish athletics federation, which, when it withdrew his license when the AIU announced the provisional suspension, reminded him that no An athlete with an open doping file may not be selected, even with a precautionary suspension of the provisional sanction.

Taking this into account, Katir, his lawyer and his agent concluded that opposing it with appeals to the AIU would be nothing more than a waste of time and money.

Deadlines would pass, the athlete's stress and restlessness would increase, and his desire to return to competing as soon as possible would be frustrated.

On December 12, the AIU informed Katir of the three location failures and offered him a period of two weeks to provide new explanations.

On December 26, having not heard from the athlete, the AIU began the suspension process that has led to his final two-year sanction.

“I am forced to assume the sanction proposed by AIU, and thus be able to begin to comply with it as soon as possible and in this way be able to return as soon as possible and not delay it in time,” admits Katir in the statement, in which he also asks “ sorry” to all the people and sponsors who have supported him in a career that began as an uncontrolled explosion in the summer of 2021, when in just 33 days (between June 10 and July 13), at three Diamond rallies League, he broke three national records with world-class marks: 5,000m (12m 50.79s), 1,500m (3m 28.76s) and 3,000m (7m 27.64s).

“And if with all this I serve as an example to make the rest of my colleagues aware of the importance of keeping

[location in ADAMS] up to date, I will be satisfied.”

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