Mohamed Katir has been banned for four years for tampering.
The 26-year-old, who secured a world 5000m silver medal in Budapest last year, was already serving a two-year ban for missing three doping tests in 12 months.
This four-year ban will run concurrently with his whereabouts failures sanction, extending Katir’s ban from the sport until February 2028.
That means that he will miss the next two world championships in Tokyo and Beijing but will be able to compete at the LA 2028 Olympics.
Katir, who is also a world 1500m bronze and European 5000m silver medallist, was found to have falsified travel documents – namely travel itinerary, boarding pass and booking confirmation – in an attempt to mislead investigators as they probed the veracity of his explanation of three missed doping tests over a one-year period.
The AIU’s Disciplinary Tribunal said: “There can be no doubt that Katir put forward a false version of events and altered documents. He did so in order to persuade World Athletics that his whereabouts failure on February 28, 2023 should not be treated as such.
“In those circumstances, it is obvious that Katir committed an anti-doping rules violation by tampering/attempted tampering.”
Katir’s other two whereabouts failures were on April 3 and October 10, 2023. His results since October 10 were already disqualified.
“Gone are the days in athletics when explanations offered in anti-doping cases are just accepted at face value,” AIU Head Brett Clothier said. “Thanks to strong investment in investigations, since its inception in 2017, the AIU has prosecuted 25 Tampering cases.
“The vast majority of our elite athletes respect the strict rules and processes of the sport and they should take heart at the action being taken to ensure a level playing field.”
Not only has Katir secured three major track medals but he is also the European 3000m indoor and 5000m record-holder, with bests of 7:27.64 and 12:45.01 respectively.
The Spaniard’s records however will still stand as they all occurred before October of last year.
Source: AW
