Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – Former 100m world champion Fred Kerley was hit with a two-year ban on Friday after failing to notify anti-doping officials of his whereabouts, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said in a statement. Kerley, who won 100m gold at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene, has been provisionally suspended since August last year after committing three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period.
An AIU disciplinary tribunal confirmed his suspension on Friday, ruling that the 30-year-old, who also won 100m medals at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics, had been “negligent and, to a certain extent, reckless” in failing to comply with anti-doping regulations. Elite athletes have strict requirements about informing anti-doping officials about their locations, such as at training camps or when traveling, and must provide a time and location each day to comply with rules regarding unannounced doping tests.
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Three failures within a year to comply with the requirements, such as a missed test or inaccurate information given to the anti-doping agency, are punishable. An AIU statement said Kerley had breached those rules three times between May 11 and December 6, 2024. A further whereabouts failure on December 7, 2024 was not taken into account when determining his suspension, which will run until August 2027.
The AIU said Kerley, a seasoned competitor in elite sprinting whose accomplishments also include world sprint relay gold in Doha in 2019 and Budapest in 2023, should have “exercised more care.” “Unfortunately, sophisticated doping substances may only be detectable within an athlete’s sample for a few days or even hours after administration,” AIU head Brett Clothier said in a statement.
“Anti-doping organisations need to be able to test athletes without notice on the day and hour of our choosing, otherwise anti-doping programmes will not work, and dopers will easily avoid detection. Whereabouts rules are therefore fundamental to the integrity of sport and must be respected,” he added.
Whether Kerley returns to elite international competition is an open question. The American has said he plans to take part in the Enhanced Games in Las Vegas in May, where competitors will be free to use performance-enhancing drugs. World Athletics, the global governing body for track and field, has said any athlete taking part in the drug-fuelled inaugural edition of the event will face “significant” bans from the sport.
© 2024 AFP
