World 100m champion Christian Coleman has had his two-year ban for missing three drug tests reduced by six months following an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The 25-year-old American will still miss the Tokyo Olympics, starting in July, as the ban runs until November 14.
He can, however, defend his world indoor and outdoor titles next year.
CAS “partially upheld” the Athletics Integrity Unit’s (AIU) ruling but found his “degree of negligence to be lower”.
Coleman, who won 100m gold at the World Championships in Doha in 2019, was first provisionally suspended in June 2020 after missing a third test in December 2019.
The indoor 60m world record holder did not contest his first missed test on January 16, 2019, but disputed his filing failure on April 26, 2019, and whereabouts failure on December 9.
The AIU investigation into his rule violations said there was no suggestion he had ever taken a banned substance.
However, Coleman’s attitude towards his anti-doping obligations was described as “entirely careless, perhaps even reckless” by the AIU in October.
According to the AIU’s out-of-competition testing guidelines, athletes are accountable for missed tests if they are not at their specified location for the one-hour period they have stated. The tester must wait for the full 60 minutes before leaving.
Coleman said he was Christmas shopping “five minutes away” from home, and that the tester made no effort to contact him during his third whereabouts failure.
CAS said Coleman “should have been on ‘high alert’ on that day” considering his previous whereabouts failures, but decided “he would have been able to return” in time to do a test if contacted.
“Although a telephone call during the 60-minute window was not required by the rules, it was nevertheless reasonable for the athlete to expect such a call, as a matter of standard practice among other doping control officers,” Cas said in a statement. (BBC Sport)
