Mo Katir suspended for whereabouts failures

The point is not that the athlete misses whereabouts "number three" but that they have missed a total of three tests. It is no longer "bad luck" or simple carelessness; it becomes a pattern of likely evasion. Hence, the violation.

Katir: “You are destroying me and I know I am going to get out of this”

What an earthquake has occurred in the world of athletics with the news of Mohamed Katir's sanction for skipping three anti-doping controls. The most promising and most successful athlete in current Spanish athletics is provisionally sanctioned. Waiting for allegations and appeals. It seems difficult for him to avoid missing the Paris Olympic Games.
Katir published a statement explaining that the AIU had informed him of the sanction. After the reactions of the press, he published a series of hot messages on his 'X' account that he later decided to delete.

"You are destroying me and you are only going to lose an athlete like me , you are only going to make me go to a country that has never wanted me and I have to run with them, just because I have had an administrative failure." “I'm going to disappear, when you see that I have never cheated and all the rulings that have been given to me are unfair, here I will see who really loves me and who doesn't (goodbye).”

Accusations
“It hurts to see that, since 2021, some people call you doped to your face , it hurts to see that I have preferred to represent you (flag of Spain) instead of my place of birth (flag of Morocco).” Furthermore, he reveals that it was he himself who decided to announce his suspension to the press: "I have to show my face as I do on the track, everything that has been leaked was due to my decision."
“120 AIU controls and I have never tested positive. Mine is an administrative problem and I know I will get out of this. There are thousands of athletes who don't even know what the WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] location app is. I have had unfair rulings. You are only going to miss out on a great athlete like me,” he adds.

Source:

Sport.es

8 February 2024

120 AIU tests??? That's either a lie, or he must have had many many suspicious and missed tests.

I really like what you are writing here: “..a clean athlete could miss a single or even two with reasonable cause..” because this is nuances I think is extremely important. The Occham’s razor theory for instance (that the most simplistic explanation often is the right one, which of course is right in a lot of cases) is f.ex IMO a really dangerous one (used as a general explanation), because of the lack of nuances…

So to the third whereabouts failure in one year: We agree that this have to be punishable as long as the fault is on the athlete (even when not intentional). But we disagree when it comes to the notion three missed whereabouts will always be a sign of being on illegitimate drugs. (Although they might most possibly be just that)…

The Swedish (multiple Oly and Worlds gold champ -xc skiing) Charlotte Kalla describes in an interview (and in a book) how she nearly got three whereabouts violations. I want you to take a look on this (linked below in Swedish -if you use the Google translate app from App store you will get it all from Swedish to a good enough English).

I don’t say she doesn’t try to deceive the reader in this interview, but I link it because it might be an honest explanation for how an athlete may unintentionally violate three whereabouts… (How “easily” one can unintentionally violate whereabouts three times, if not extremely cautious)…

aftonbladet.se

Så nära var Charlotte Kalla att stängas av för dopningsbrott: ”Såg rubrikerna”

I nya boken ”Skam den som ger sig ” berättar skidstjärnan Charlotte Kalla om skräcken att bli dömd för dopningsbrott och hur nära det en gång var.

Open link

Fair enough, but you should wait to the appeal is answered, instead of unnecessary speculate that he hasn’t any good explanation…

Again: if he had a really good explanation with proper evidence, he would not have been provisionally suspended. Those provisional suspensions come after months of back and forth between the athlete's team and the AIU.

Of course you will never lose an argument when definitions are morphed at each loss.

Your definition doesn't seem to be shared with other posters, who concludes that this provisional suspension from whereabouts failures confirms the involvement of banned substances/methods for his "suspicious" performances.

Clean and dirty athletes alike can miss three tests, because athletes, and testers, are human, and humans make mistakes, especially in administrative and coordination activities meant to effectively implement unannounced suprise tests. And clean and dirty athletes alike can have some missed tests appealed and overturned, because it is not a question of cleanliness, but of a justifiable alibi.

There is nothing special about "3" -- that is a compromise between athletes (of all sports) and WADA to balance the athletes' personal lives with their professional obligations. And there is nothing special about being clean or dirty that anti-doping bodies can identify and treat differently during the whereabouts failure process.

The reason it is an anti-doping violation is that avoiding testing undermines anti-doping. Both clean and dirty athletes should be punished, like they would be for other non-use violations like "tampering".

The key word in what you are writing here is likeley. But in a healthy judicial system we in many ways have in our democratic societies we need more than a likely to extend the punishment from two years till four years..! Or / and conclude that the athlete is a drugged one.

You speculate unnecessarily here -we know there have been other cases that have been realised (and therefore probably been evaluated throughout months of back and forth before the release) - other cases where the athlete eventually (after the realise) has been acquitted…

God he's one of the biggest whiners.

Claim by Rojo (one of the admins of this site) confirmed:

Katir used micro-dosing to progress his performances

Lets everyone mark this for history

While every athlete, including Katir, deserves to be considered innocent until proven guilty, continuous whereabouts violations, like Katir's, severely undermine the presumption of innocence, casting substantial suspicion upon his own commitment to clean competition.

Katir holds the key to his own reputation, and strict adherence to simple whereabouts rules demonstrates dedication to fair play. Failing this demonstrates a blatant disregard for clean competition, an insult to every athlete who dedicates themselves to ethical sport.

And this raises understandable concerns – not only damaging anti-doping efforts but also hurting those who play by the rules. As suspicion towards everyone increases when the system falters, an inference of potential doping from missed tests becomes a vital safeguard.

Let's see if the three missed tests were sporadic (which I'd take at face value for accidental mistakes), or if Katir's missed tests were clustered around competitions (which I will forever suggest is suggestive of strategic evasion).

Here is the google translate version of the interesting interview:

Called horror: "Saw the doping headlines"

Reveals the concerns in the new book "Shame on those who give"

Jonathan Knekta

Updated 2023-11-03 | Published 2023-10-31

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Charlotte Kalla was just one miss away from being punished for doping offences.

She reveals this in her autobiography "Shame on those who give"

"I understood just how close I was to razing my entire existence." she tells.

Earlier this year, Swedish tennis star Mikael Ymer was suspended for failing three doping tests.

In the autobiography "Shame on those who give", which is released on Tuesday, Charlotte Kalla reveals that she was a missed stay report from meeting the same fate at the end of her career.

An icy cold spread through the skiing star's body when she picked up the phone after the roller skiing session at home in Sundsvall in May 2021.

"A message. Seventeen missed calls. All from the same number.

The number was familiar but I wasn't quite sure who called. I pressed the screen, heard the voice and immediately understood what had happened.

It became difficult to breathe because of the terror that washed over me.” she says in the book.

Also read: Charlotte Kalla's rage against Peter Settman's kiss at the Sports Gala

Charlotte Kalla during a training session in 2021.

Charlotte Kalla during a training session in 2021.

1 / 2

Photo: ANDERS DEROS / Schibsted

Second miss in a short time

As an active member, she would write in the ADAMS reporting system three months in advance a place where she could be found for an hour every single day for a doping control. Three weeks earlier, she had forgotten to change her location to Östersund, where she was for a meeting before the Olympics in Beijing 2022, instead of her home in Sundsvall.

It was messy, but not a disaster.

Now she was just a dot, a single mistake, away from being punished for doping offences. Anyone who has three mistakes in the stay reporting within a twelve-month period will be suspended for at least twelve months.

"In the stay report it said that I would be available between 07:00 and 08:00, but I had forgotten to double-check that. When I stepped out on the pass, I was so sure that I had reported 06:30-07:30.

I left at 07:45. The doping controllers came eight minutes later.”

Charlotte Kalla.

Charlotte Kalla.

Photo: Anders Deros

"I saw the headlines in front of me"

Charlotte Kalla describes how everything came to a halt when she heard the doping inspector's voice on the phone when she called back after all the missed calls.

"I understood just how close I was to razing my entire existence. I saw the headlines in front of me if I was careless one more time:

'COLLY FIRED FOR DOPING'

That was how my career would end. Everything I had done would be questioned. The image of my character would crack. The awards and medals in the locker I just passed would be completely worthless.

No one would want to see the whole picture, bother with explanations, or want to hear excuses for carelessness. One more miss would put a stamp on me that couldn't be removed:

Convicted of doping.

What I did was far from doping, but it was a mistake in a system that elite sport needed. And it was my responsibility to make sure I did the right thing.”

Charlotte Kalla and her partner Fredrik Karström at the Sports Gala in January this year.

Charlotte Kalla and her partner Fredrik Karström at the Sports Gala in January this year.

Photo: Jesper Zerman / Bildbyrån

Didn't dare tell

She needed to talk to her partner Fredrik directly. Her sisters would eventually become some of the few who knew the secret she carried. No one in what was called "Team Kalla" was told anything.

The shame was too great to tell and the black cloud of worry would follow her career for the rest of her career. Not least during the long journey from the training camp in Italian Livigno to the Olympics in Beijing in February 2022.

- I was super stressed because I was going to be on the road for so long. When will we even arrive at the Olympic Village? I didn't get any clear answers anywhere either. I applied to Antidoping Sweden so that they would help me explain exactly where I should enter my slot times, Charlotte Kalla tells Sportbladet.

Charlotte Kalla ended her career with a SC bronze in the three mile in Piteå on March 28, 2022. She knew exactly what she was going to do the next day: deregister in the ADAMS system.

- I was at Pite Havsbad and asked if they could print the documents. “Do you have a scanner? Can I scan it in?”. It felt like a stone was lifted from my chest as I emailed in the documents I had signed.

Charlotte Kalla ended her career with an SM bronze in the three mile in Piteå on March 28, 2022.

Firstly, I don't have to agree with other posters in order to form my own views. Their definition of what a whereabouts failure means doesn't have to be mine. I form my views according to my own understanding of the issues. Hence, I don't agree with you.

Secondly, your claim that clean athletes can miss three tests in a given period is unlikely, as the great majority of athletes comply with the testing requirements. Carelessness, forgetfulness or even an inability to understand the testing process is never given as an explanation. This is obvious, as those who miss tests will also have complied with tests on other occasions; so they know what is expected of them.

It is therefore more probable that those who miss three tests are doping, as it suggests a pattern of evasion rather than mere forgetfulness, which is why WADA draws a line at three missed tests. It isn't a figure WADA has simply plucked out of the air but will be based on an understanding of how athletes who dope will try to circumvent the system.

The weakness in your thinking is to see no connection between antidoping measures and the actual problem these measures are a response to. It is ironic that the athletes and sports governance bodies can see the connection since they accept the rule that three missed tests is an antidoping violation and not an arbitrary and even unjust penalty imposed on mostly innocent athletes. If it were the latter the rule would be scrapped through the weight of their protests. There are none.

Seriously, that is your example for "reasonable cause"? She alleged 1) to have forgotten to update her whereabouts while traveling and 2) to have forgotten that her hour was from 7 - 8. I am not buying those excuses for one second.

LOL your example says exactly what you are arguing against here.

The whereabouts failure is not a determination by WADA that an athlete has probably doped (as rekrunner has been so anxious to point out) but the rule is based on the likelihood that an athlete who misses a succession of tests will be doing so because they are doping (which rekrunner is correspondingly anxious to not see). The point is a subtle one. In essence, the rule has been formulated to counter likely doping but a violation is not a pronouncement by WADA that an individual athlete has doped. However, the man in the street - as we are - can easily form a view on whether the offender was probably doping or not if they can't come up with a justifiable excuse for missing any of those tests.

A couple of translations errors by google here: 1. The name of Kalla’s book is: “Shame on those who give up”.

2. “When I stepped out on the pass, I was so sure I had reported 06.30-07.30” -pass is here a Swedish word that means training session.