European 5000m record-holder and multiple major medallist receives provisional suspension from Athletics Integrity Unit

Mo Katir has been provisionally suspended for missing three anti-doping tests over a 12-month period.

The Spanish 25-year-old is the current European 5000m and indoor 3000m record-holder and has claimed world 5000m silver and 1500m bronze medals.

Katir also has a European 5000m silver medal on his CV.

He broke Jakob Ingebrigtsens European 5000m record at last years Monaco Diamond League with 12:45.01, bettering the Norwegians previous best mark of 12:48.45.

Katirs European indoor 3000m record of 7:24.68 was set at the Pas-de-Calais meeting in Lievin last season. He finished second behind Ethiopias Lamecha Girma, who ran a world record of 7:23.81.

The Spaniard was registered for Meeting International Ciudad de Valencia, where hed hoped to break the European indoor 5000m record a mark of 12:57.08 set by Britains Marc Scott.

Katir said that hed appeal the charge of whereabouts failures.

I consider that there is no violation arising from three location failures in the last twelve months, the Spaniard said.

In some of the location failures reported by AIU, I was available at the place, date and times provided by me.

Over the last few months and years I have been subjected to a large number of out-of-competition doping controls in both urine and blood samples, without the slightest problem on my part.

It is important to keep in mind that we are not dealing with a case of violating doping rules for the use of prohibited substances or methods, or even for evading out-of-competition doping controls.

This is a simple file derived from the completion of location data on the ADAMS platform that could generate location errors (whereabouts).