Spanish Olympian and two-time world championship medallist Mohamed Katir was handed a four-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on Friday for falsifying journey paperwork in assist of his clarification for his three whereabouts failures in 2023.
The AIU has banned Mohamed Katir for 4 years, from 7 February 2024, for Tampering.
Particulars right here: https://t.co/DWFMES7xfjhttps://t.co/juFqZJbM17 (web page 4) pic.twitter.com/YA3NcuJujG
— Athletics Integrity Unit (@aiu_athletics) December 20, 2024
As a substitute of accepting wrongdoing and taking over the two-year whereabouts ban, the 26-year-old middle-distance runner falsified journey paperwork (a journey itinerary, boarding go and reserving affirmation) in an try to mislead investigators as they probed the integrity of his clarification for a whereabouts failure that occurred on Feb. 28, 2023. The end result was a good longer ban than what he was already dealing with.
The four-year ban will run concurrently with Katir’s ongoing whereabouts sanction, extending his ban from the game till February 2028. This implies he will probably be compelled to overlook each the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing.
In response to the AIU, the world 5,000m silver medallist missed three assessments between Feb. 28, 2023 and Oct. 10, 2023 (lacking three doping assessments in a 12-month window leads to an anti-doping rule violation, or ADRV).
Katir’s whereabouts failures
On Feb. 28, 2023, a Doping Management Officer (DCO) went to the handle in Murcia, Spain, indicated within the Athlete’s Whereabouts info; upon arrival, the DCO was informed that Katir was in Lisbon and wouldn’t be returning till March 2.
Katir missed one other check on April 3, when a DCO confirmed up at his residence in Murcia once more. Once they arrived, Katir was coaching in France, and had did not replace his whereabouts. Katir informed the AIU he tried to replace his info, however the system was not working. He was charged together with his second violation when he did not ship an electronic mail offering proof of technical points.
His third violation occurred on Oct. 10, when a DCO went to the desired location throughout a 60-minute time slot between 7:20 p.m. and eight:20 p.m. When the DCO arrived, Katir was away at coaching, and later insisted there was a mistake in his whereabouts, and claimed he by no means modified the time slot from his common 7:00 a.m. to eight:00 a.m. window.
Katir is a two-time world championship medallist within the males’s 1,500m and 5,000m occasions. He gained silver within the 5,000m behind Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen on the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
AIU head Brett Clothier mentioned the ruling underscored the seriousness of tampering: “Gone are the times in athletics when explanations provided in anti-doping instances are simply accepted at face worth,” he harassed. “The overwhelming majority of our elite athletes respect the strict guidelines and processes of the game and they need to take coronary heart on the motion being taken to make sure a stage taking part in discipline.”