AIU says Naser was suspended because of four “whereabouts failure”


AIU says Naser was suspended because of four “whereabouts failure”

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) said on Sunday that world 400m champion Salwa Eid Nasser was provisionally suspended for registering four whereabouts failures.

ADVERTISEMENT

On Friday, The Bahrain athlete, who won a gold medal at the World Championships in Doha last year, pleaded her innocence despite AIU failing to make herself available for anti-doping tests.

In an Instagram video, Naser said that she had “missed only three drug tests” and that the missed tests came before the September incident in Doha.

“The investigation into Ms Naser’s three whereabouts failures in 2019 was ongoing at the time of the Doha World Championships and she was not provisionally suspended at that time,” the AIU said in a statement.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Following conclusion of the investigation and a fourth whereabouts failure in January 2020, a Notice of Charge was issued and Ms Naser subject to an immediate provisional suspension.”

According to the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, any combination of failure of the three bases – filing failures or missed trials – constitutes an anti-doping violation by an athlete within a 12-month period.

Athletes guilty of whereabouts failure may face a two-year ban or a minimum of one year, depending on the degree of defect.

As the disciplinary process was going on, AIU would not comment further. Naser, 22, said that she didn’t tested this year and hoping she could leave the issue behind soon.

ADVERTISEMENT

“It can happen to anybody. I don’t want people to get confused in all this because I would never cheat,” she had said on the video.

“Hopefully, it’ll get resolved because I don’t really like the image… It’s going to be fine. It’s very hard to have this little stain on my name”, she added.