Two years without Mohamed Katir. The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics has imposed this punishment on the Spanish athlete, who had been provisionally suspended for not being reachable in three anti-doping controls in the last twelve months. The punishment applied to the Spanish distance runner goes from February 7, 2024 to February 7, 2026, so he misses the Paris Olympic Games, which start on July 26. The athlete could now appeal to the AIU and later to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (TAS) but this Friday he issued a statement in which he apologizes and accepts the sanction. He justifies his failure to appear at the controls due to a "mistake" when using the system.
"First of all, I would like to apologize to all those people who have supported me throughout my life from my family, sponsors, entities, coach, representative, as well as all those people who, to a greater or lesser extent, are always there," It starts in his writing Katir. This message contradicts what he said on February 7 that the provisional sanction was due to "failures in the system." He now takes all the blame although he denies doping.
The sanction for Mula from Murcia, double world medalist (bronze in the 1,500 in Eugene 2022 and silver in the 5,000 in Budapest 2023) should not be too surprising since it is the punishment that usually accompanies unjustified absences from three controls in the period of one year.
"These are cases that can happen, and in fact happen, sometimes to athletes who are included in the anti-doping control program. For example, at a certain point, when incorporating my location data, the platform did not work correctly, limiting myself to sending an email to the manager of the ADAMS system of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to let him know where I was at that moment and where I would be on subsequent dates. However, due to ignorance, and thinking that ADAMS and AIU were the same, I did not inform the AIU about it, something that I later learned was mandatory," the athlete argues.
Katir believes that he is going to pay a very high price for not being a methodical person in these matters. "These location failures have been due to my lack of knowledge of the correct functioning of the location system through ADAMS, fundamentally in the updating of data after the quarterly presentation initially made by me. But, above all, this problem has "I have come motivated because I am a very absent-minded person. I assume that these mistakes or errors in updating the location data in ADAMS end up becoming a lack of diligence."
For all these reasons, Katir concludes that he has no choice but to "assume the sanction and thus be able to begin to comply with it as soon as possible and in this way be able to return as soon as possible and not delay it in time." The athlete claims that all of his achievements have occurred without cheating. This Saturday he turns 25 years old. It can't be a happy day.
