Team USA Sprinter Christian Coleman Suspended 2 Years for Missing Drug Tests

Christian Coleman, the reigning men's 100-meter world champion, will not be able to defend his title for the next two years after he was suspended for missing a series of drug tests, according to USA Today's Tom Schad.

The favorite to win gold at next summer's Tokyo Olympics will appeal the decision, per Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. 

Coleman, an Atlanta native who was a national champion at Tennessee, missed three doping tests over a 12-month period in 2019, and the Athletics Integrity Unit (which is in charge of the anti-drug program for World Athletics, which is the international governing body of track and field) on Tuesday confirmed the provisional suspension they handed out to Coleman in June. 

The suspension is not to suggest that Coleman has "ever taken any Prohibited Substance," according to the AIU's decision, but instead is due to a violation of the requirement that athletes must provide their whereabouts for one hour every day when a drug test can be administered. He was handed a similar ban in 2019 but successfully appealed the decision.

"Unfortunately, we see this case as involving behaviour by the Athlete as very careless at best and reckless at worst," the AIU wrote. 

The new suspension stems from a Dec. 9, 2019 incident, in which the AIU says collectors waited outside Coleman's home for an hour, and while he said he stopped at home to eat Chipotle in between shopping trips, receipts suggest it would have been "simply impossible" for him to be there, according to the AIU. 

In June, when the provisional suspension was handed out, Coleman expressed his frustration with the decision in a tweet:

If the suspension holds, Coleman, who also holds a world record in the 60-meter dash, will be eligible to compete again on May 13, 2022.