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Christian Coleman of Team USA blew away the field (in 9.76) to win his first title in the men’s 100m. Unfortunately, no matter how many more he wins, his career will be forever tarnished by this doping scandal:
Sprinter Christian Coleman cannot be the face of athletics following the controversy over his missed drugs tests, says US legend Michael Johnson. …
‘It completely disqualifies him, at this point, from ever being that face of the sport. This will follow him, as it should,’ Johnson told BBC Sport.
(BBC, September 27, 2019)
Thanks to dogged investigative reporting, we found out how cycling’s top officials turned a blind eye to Lance Armstrong’s doping. Not to mention the extraordinary feat doper Marion Jones pulled off by winning so many titles before getting caught.
Therefore, we can be forgiven for suspecting that track & field’s top officials are turning a blind eye to Coleman’s doping. If so, we can rest assured that it’s only a matter of time before he gets his comeuppance too.
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That is the cynical and prescient way I hailed Coleman’s victory in “The IAAF World Championships in Doha…,” September 30, 2019.
Sure enough:
The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), which handles doping cases for track and field, listed Coleman as provisionally suspended for ‘whereabouts failures — any combination of three missed drug tests and/or filing failures in a 12-month period. …
In whereabouts failures cases, a suspension, once finalized, is one to two years depending on degree of fault. That puts Coleman’s 2021 Olympic hopes in jeopardy even if a ban is backdated.
(CNBC, June 17, 2020)
Of course, just weeks ago, I had cause to express similar schadenfreude over the comeuppance of Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain who blew away the field in the women’s 400m at that same championship.
But, truth be told, the reason this keeps happening is that cheaters too often prosper. Our forlorn hope is that, with dogged testing, fewer and fewer of them will.