Ethiopian middle-distance runner Diribe Welteji has been banned for almost two years for violating anti-doping regulations.
Welteji, the silver medalist in the women’s 1,500 meters at the 2023 world championships, was ruled to be “negligent” in failing to comply with an attempt to collect a doping test sample last year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Thursday.
Ethiopia’s anti-doping body initially cleared her in August but World Athletics appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and she was provisionally suspended for the Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
CAS ruled that while her violation was not intentional, she was still negligent and failed to provide compelling justification for not submitting to testing.
She has now been stripped of her world indoor 1500m silver medal from Nanjing, with all results from February 25 last year disqualified.
CAS said in its statement that drug testers arrived at Welteji’s property in February 2025 and were told by her husband that she was asleep, and that witnesses disagreed about what took place after that until the testing staff left without a sample.
CAS said its arbitrator accepted there were language barriers and that “certain technical and best practice departures occurred” but that “an athlete of (Welteji’s) caliber and experience should have known that she was required to comply regardless of the timing of the visit.”
MG/as/APA