Three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period constitutes a rule violation, meaning Coleman was banned for two years. He has the right to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport within 30 days of receipt of the decision.
The athlete will remain ineligible to compete until 13 May 2022.
2/2— Athletics Integrity Unit (@aiu_athletics) October 27, 2020
The ‘filing failure’ charge relates to Coleman failing to update his whereabouts information promptly after he learned of changes to his itinerary.
According to the written verdict from the Athletics Integrity Unit, Coleman had indicated he would be at his home in Kentucky on the date in question.
He was visited by testing officers outside of his designated testing slot but was instead at the Drake Relays meet in Iowa, and updated his whereabouts data to reflect this around five minutes after being called by testing officers.
The December 2019 missed test occurred when Coleman went out shopping during his designated one-hour time slot, meaning a third strike on his record for the year.
The AIU’s verdict also noted a previous charge against Coleman which, had it been proven, would have ruled him out of the World Championships at which he won his double gold.
Coleman had been charged with a filing failure in June 2018 which, together with the January and April 2019 breaches, would have constituted a violation.
However, filing failures are deemed to have occurred on the first day of the relevant three-month whereabouts period – in that case April 1st, 2018, taking it just outside of the 12-month window.
