Jacob Hård about Christian Coleman's doping misses: "At best careless - at worst somewhat suspicious"

Colemen's latest stay reporting miss, which occurred last December when he (as he claims) was shopping for Christmas presents, was his fourth since June 2018.

Already when the American took his first World Cup gold in Doha last year, he was questioned about his start, when he was accused this summer of having failed in his stay reporting of the US anti-doping agency Usada. However, he has never been tested positive for doping.

Coleman is far from the only sprint star who has been suspected or jammed for doping, and Jacob Hård believes that this could mean that confidence in the running, and the status of 100 meters, can now be affected.

- Maybe it can. We have, for example, had Justin Gatlin, when he has been on the starting line there have been many who have reacted to it and thought that it really was a symbol that what you see you can not really believe. So yes, that 100 meters is perhaps an extra vulnerable branch, says Hård, who, however, feels uncertain about what Coleman's final penalty will be:

- It's impossible to say. He was about to be shut down as early as before the World Cup, but then it was a writing in the rules that meant that his three barriers in stay reporting that were done then would not be counted within twelve months - so he managed to get away. So it is impossible to say what this will end with, but it is not unlikely that it will end with a shutdown.

Just because he made so many misses in such a short time, what do you think about it?

- I think it is sloppy at best, at least somewhat suspicious - it is impossible to know. But this is how it must work with this stay reporting. Many athletes, even Swedes, have testified that it is easy to make mistakes. But this is how the rules look and they have to exist.

His explanation, that he missed a test because he was out shopping Christmas presents, what do you say about it?

- There are many imaginative explanations for why doping offenses are committed, and this is one of them. It may have been the way he did it, but it doesn't matter. There is no valid reason for violating these provisions.