by Alfonz Juck
Chrisitan Coleman, photo by PhotoRun.net
RunBlogRun opines: Christian Coleman is one of the finest athletes in the world. He is a quiet young man, who lets his feet do his talking. And he is just at the cusp of stardom, a fine contract from Nike, which, if one uses past sprinters at his level as guidance, is making a nice mid six figures a year. He has a management team, who, should be managing things like USADA/WADA appearances. Somewhere there was a clusterf#ck. As Let’sRun’s Jonathan Gault noted a few weeks ago, and Cathal Denehy said with no euphamisms, how does one miss 3 whereabout tests?
It is an embarrassment. It embarrasses the sport, USATF, the sponsor and most of all, the management team and the athlete. I have had to write about this before. It is not the same as getting a positve. It is, well, stupid.
The sad thing is, no matter what Christian Coleman does, some journalist will pull it up and note that Mr.Coleman screwed the proverbial pooch, to use the vernacular Midwest expression.
I like Christian. The problem is shit happens. The truth is somewhere in between gross negligence and genuine disregard. One hops that the management team makes sure that this does not happen again. Christian Coleman is a fine talent and I would hate to loose him on such a dumb issue.
Coleman is cleared
COLORADO SPRINGS (USA): The US Anti-Doping Agency has dropped its case against world 60 m record-holder Christian Coleman following an alleged whereabouts violation. According to their statement, this was “after receiving guidance from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on the interpretation of the current International Standard for Testing and Investigations (ISTI) concerning the date on which a failure to update an athlete’s changed whereabouts information should be considered to have occurred.” Coleman recorded a missed test on 6 June, 2018. He had two other failures – on 16 January and 26 April, 2019. However, after clarification from WADA, USADA realised his 6 June missed test should relate back to 1 April, 2018, the first day of the quarter in which the failure to update occurred. This date is more than 12 months prior to Coleman’s most recent whereabouts failure and thus he will not need to face a hearing.
