World champion sprinter Christian Coleman has been banned for two years after missing three drug tests, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced on Tuesday.
The American, who won the men’s 100 metres at last year’s world championships in Doha, was provisionally suspended for three ‘whereabouts failures’ in June.
Three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period can result in a ban of up to two years.
Coleman did not contest his first missed test on 16 January 2019 but disputed his filing failure on 26 April 2019 and whereabouts failure on 9 December.
World Athletics’ Disciplinary Tribunal upheld the charge and banned Coleman for two years, backdated to 14 May, 2020.
The 24-year-old American will miss the postponed Tokyo Olympics next summer.
The indoor 60m world record holder has 30 days to file an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The investigation into his rule violations said there was no suggestion he had ever taken a prohibited substance.
According to the Athletics Integrity Unit’s (AIU) 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.
He released a statement on Twitter saying he would be “willing to take a drug test every single day for the rest of my career” to prove his innocence.
