Mo Katir admits whereabouts failures -- banned 2 years and will miss '24 Olympics

What are the testing standards like during his suspension? Can he just rail EPO to the gills for the next 23 months?

He will continue to be tested during his ban thankfully. It’s kinda nice that he won’t be in a global championship until 2027 as it stands.

What hurts NOW, friend?

Good riddance!

Doper. Unfollowed him.

In addition to Luis wasn’t Mario 4th at worlds 2022? Rather awkward for the Spanish team.

don’t know if the can, but make sure, he will

I get that he hadn't updated his whereabout to reflect where he'd gone, but why were they turning up outside his given time-slot?

So I get the whole "innocent until proven guilty" narrative - especially when it comes to doping and yeah it does suck that as fans of the sport we have been let down soooo many times that we are all inherently skeptical before optimistic when we encounter guys like Katir.

But that being said we shouldn't be believing in the tooth fairy just for the sake of following some constructed tennant of optimism right? That just makes you ignorant and foolish. Nothing about Mohammed Katirs rise to prominence seemed optically or anecdotally legit. And yes it matters that he's now running for a nation with a notorious history in systemic and institutionalized doping in middle distance running. Yes it matters that he dropped from 3.36 to 3.28 in a damn season. Yes it matters that he looks unnaturally gaunt - it all matters.

The "explanations" above are laughable. These guys could be better off investing some of their pharmaceutical bucks into a strategist/coordinator who deals with the app logins/flight receipts/burrito constituents so they at least match-up with the damn story and they don't come across like idiots trying to pass them off as exculpatory evidence.

They only credit I will give this Frankenstein is that he at least owned it and saved himself another 1-2 years which is something that Shelby Houlihan couldn't bring herself to do.

What hurts, friend? 😼

This is common practice. If testers only showed up within a one-hour window, athletes would know they are not going to be tested the remaining 23 hours of the day, which makes it easier to microdose. That's why athletes have to provide an overnight location and regular practice locations. With the first test, if Katir was half an hour away running an errand but had coordinated with the DCO to take the test, he would not have received a whereabouts failure. You only get in trouble in this situation when you are nowhere near your listed location -- and that was the case here given Katir was in a different country.

Jonathan,

Thank you for not trolling us this time around, unlike when Shelby was banned.

Yeah, he was either doping or INCREDIBLY and unbelievably incompetent. The log-in to the app after the fact, however, makes me suspect the former.

I don’t understand what happens the hours/days after an athlete misses a test. Does the doping control officer just go back home if the athlete didn’t show? “OK, he’s not where he’s supposed to be right now.” Either: “Mark this is a whereabouts violation” OR “let’s use all available resources to find this individual and get them tested today”. It’s 2024. People have iPhones, social media, GPS & strava, etc, if you aren’t able to find them and test them that same day, then CLEARLY they are hiding something. If WADA used this strategy, what would the excuses be? “My iPhone fell into the toilet, that’s why I wasn’t receiving calls for two days”. There should be no such thing as a whereabouts failure. Fine the athletes the costs of tracking them down after they “forget” to update where they are - and keep a record of how long it took. Anything over 24 hours is incredibly deceptive. Luis is a medalist to me, and I will never care about Katir’s performances again

This reminds me of Sondre Guttormsen's (pole vault) comments during the Tobi Amusan case:

"Those who accumulate 3 whereabouts failures should be branded as dopers and nothing else. There are no excuses. If you get 1, you'll live on that app (ADAMS). If you get 2 you'll hire an entire team to manage that f*cking app for you. It's not hard at all, it takes one minute."

Now ban Kenya.

What a bunch of bs time windows as well. All the athletes I know set them to be 0630 or whatever in the morning when they are waking up. Easier to make excuses when they are at the evening I guess.

He was probably just at the mall. Seems totally legit to me!

He flat out lied multiple times. That leads me to believe it was much more likely that he was trying to hide doping.

No. Everything after 10/10/23 is taken away from him (some road races and recent indoor 1500m)