Mohamed Katir slapped with a 2-year ban

Mohamed Katir’s ‘provisional suspension‘ from earlier this month has turned into a definite two-year ban after the Athletics Integrity Unit announced the Spanish middle-distance runner had admitted missing three drug tests over one year.

The AIU said the 25-year-old “returned a signed Admission of Anti-Doping Rule Violation and Acceptance of Consequences Form, conceding a violation of Rule 2.4 (Whereabouts Failures by an Athlete in a Registered Testing Pool) of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules (ADR).

The 2022 1500m world championship bronze medalist and 2023 5000m world championship silver medalist will miss the 2024 Olympics and the 2025 World Championships.

His ban runs from 7 February until 6 February. He will be 27 when he's eligible to compete again.

“Katir admitted to three Whereabouts Failures in 12 months, beginning on 28 February 2023, specifically: a Filing Failure on 28 February 2023; a Missed Test/Filing Failure on 3 April 2023; and a Missed Test/Filing Failure on 10 October 2023.

His two-year period of ineligibility will start from the date of his Provisional Suspension and will therefore run from 7 February 2024 until 6 February 2026. All Katir’s results and related awards since 10 October 2023 have been disqualified,” the statement reads.

Katir, the European 5000m and indoor 3000m record-holder broke Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s European 5000m record at last year’s Monaco Diamond League with 12:45.01, beating the Norwegian’s previous best mark of 12:48.45.

His European indoor 3000m record of 7:24.68 was set at the Pas-de-Calais meeting in Lievin last season when he finished second behind Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma, who ran a world record of 7:23.81.

Initially, Katir maintained his innocence, saying: “I consider that there is no violation arising from three location failures in the last twelve months. In some of the location failures reported by AIU, I was available at the place, date, and times provided by me

Over the last few months and years, I have been subjected to a large number of out-of-competition doping controls in both urine and blood samples, without the slightest problem on my part.”

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Additional reporting by Athletics Weekly