The president of the Athletics Federation responds to Mo Katir: “The eligibility criteria come before any sporting criteria”

The president of the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation (RFEA), Raúl Chapado, did not want to make a personal assessment on the Katir case this Thursday out of “respect for the investigation of the case”, but he did assure that the body he presides is committed to the fight against doping. “Athletes know that they are obliged to comply with the regulations and frameworks of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),” Chapado said during the press conference.

The statements of the president of the RFEA respond to the justification offered by Mo Katir himself after learning of his suspension. In it, the athlete attributed his absence in up to three anti-doping controls to errors in the ADAMS platform, used to locate and notify athletes of the corresponding tests.

In the same way, Chapado reiterated the federation's commitment to having “athletes who compete in a clean and fair manner.” In reference to Katir's provisional suspension, the president recalled that in 2017 the federation approved “eligibility criteria that come before any sporting criteria” and assured that “if [un atleta] “He has an open file for discipline or doping, he is not eligible for any international competition.”

After learning that he would be provisionally suspended by the RFEA, Katir published a message on his social networks, which he would later delete, in which he threatened to represent Morocco if the situation was not resolved in his favor. Regarding this, Chapado also avoided taking a position: “I found out today, but I am not going to value opinions. It is a right to give an opinion and nothing more.” And without changing the subject, the president of the federation also asked for an end to the insults that Katir received after posting his message: “What is not justified under any procedure are the attacks of racism and xenophobia, one thing cannot justify the other ”, he stated.

The beginning of Katir's nightmare, an athlete with a high chance of winning a medal in Paris 2024, happened last October, while he was training on a track near his home, in Mula (Murcia). The controllers rang his doorbell and he was not there. Despite this, his official residence is not the most common; These are usually high altitude preparation centers, mainly in the Sierra Nevada, in Font Romeu (French Pyrenees) or in Ifrane, in the Moroccan Atlas.

Katir learned of his suspension yesterday while he was in Valencia, where that night he was going to run in a 5,000 meter race on a 200 meter track; His objective was to beat the European record (12m 57.08s) of the British Marc Scott, a goal that he was left without achieving.

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