Salwa Eid Nasser to miss Tokyo Olympics after 2-year ban for anti-doping violation but retains 400m world title

Bahrain’s world 400m champion Salwa Eid Naser will not be taking part in Tokyo Olympics after being handed a 2-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for anti-doping violation over missing out-of-competition tests.

However, the Nigerian born athlete will retain the world medal won at the 2019 world championships as it had sufficient evidence that she did not gain from doping practices then.

CAS in November registered an appeal from the sport’s global governing body World Athletics against an Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) disciplinary tribunal decision to clear Naser of committing an anti-doping violation. According to World Athletics rules, any combination of three missed tests or filing failures within a 12-month period by an athlete constitutes a whereabouts failure violation.

“Naser is sanctioned with a period of ineligibility of two years, commencing on the date of notification of this award, with credit given for the period of provisional suspension already served between June 4, 2020 and Oct. 14, 2020,” CAS said in a statement.

“All competitive results obtained by Naser from Nov. 25, 2019, through to the date of notification of this award shall be disqualified, with all of the resulting consequences, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize and appearance money.”

Naser won gold at the World Championships in Doha in October, 2019 clocking 48.14 seconds, the third fastest time in history.

She attempted to escape the consequences: CAS

CAS said it recognised the athlete would be distressed to miss the Olympics but the fault for this blow to her career is no-one’s but her’s.

“She attempted to escape the consequences of her actions by giving evidence which this panel found to be untruthful. Such an approach from a top-level athlete is seriously undermining the whole anti-doping program and is sanctioned accordingly.”