Two-year ban for Mo Katir for skipping three anti-doping controls | Sports

The Athletics Integrity Unit has decided to sanction the athlete Mo Katir with two years of disqualification, who had already been suspended by World Athletics after being unable to be located in three anti-doping controls within a period of one year. The punishment of the Spanish distance runner, 25 years old and living in Murcia, will last from February 7 of this year to February 6, 2026. Now, Katir will be able to appeal to the Abritral Sports Court ( TAS), but the possibility of him being able to participate in the Olympic Games to be held in Paris this summer is remote. Katir is a double world medalist having won bronze in the 1,500m in Eugene 2022 and silver in the 5,000m in Budapest 2023.

“As I do not agree with the decision taken by the AIU (the anti-doping agency of the international federation, WA), I am preparing to appeal to it in order to compete during the processing of the procedure,” Katir said in a statement on February 7. The Spanish federation (RFEA), for its part, was forceful. “An athlete provisionally suspended or with an open doping file does not meet the eligibility criteria,†he recalled in a note. According to this rule, even if Katir obtained a precautionary suspension of the sanction, the best Spanish athlete, the best hope for a medal, would not be eligible to participate in either the Europeans, in June, or the Games, in August.

More information

The athlete’s manager, Miguel Ángel Mostaza, explains the situation as a problem of “mistakes.” But international regulations specify that changes in plans, unforeseen trips or last-minute decisions must be constantly updated with messages from the mobile phone. “We are not facing a file of violation of doping rules for the use of prohibited substances or methods, nor even for evading out-of-competition controls. This is a simple file derived from the completion of data on the Adams platform [utilizada para localizar y notificar a los atletas de las pruebas correspondientes] “which could have generated location errors,” Katir alleged last week.

The next day, the president of the Spanish federation, Raúl Chapado, responded at a press conference: “Athletes know that they are obliged to comply with the regulations and frameworks of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).” €. The leader reiterated the commitment of the organization he presides to having “athletes who compete in a clean and fair manner.” And regarding the probability that Katir will be able to attend the Games in the French capital, he responded: “I don’t know exactly what legal deadlines there are and if he could arrive.†“We have a history and we must learn from it. It is worrying that a case, and I am not referring specifically to this one, could stain our sport. We cannot be delusional and think that doping has disappeared from athletics,†he added.

The beginning of the nightmare for Katir, an athlete with a high chance of winning a medal in Paris 2024, happened last October, while he was training on a track near his home, in Mula (Murcia). The controllers rang his doorbell and he was not there. Despite this, his official residence is not the most common; These are usually high altitude preparation centers, mainly in the Sierra Nevada, in Font Romeu (French Pyrenees) or in Ifrane, in the Moroccan Atlas. The long-distance runner has put his case in the hands of Borja Osés, a lawyer who knew how to deal with and obtain a declaration of innocence for the middle-distance runner Adel Mechaal in a similar case, with three location problems as well. Before the Rio 2016 Games, Osés managed to get the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE) to allow him to compete.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

2024-02-16 14:43:21
#Twoyear #ban #Katir #skipping #antidoping #controls #Sports