Paris (AFP)

French marathoner Clémence Calvin, suspended for four years for having fled a doping control in March 2019 in Marrakech, was dismissed on Friday by the Council of State as she challenged her suspension.

Clémence Calvin was suspended for four years in November 2019 by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) for an incredible affair: she was convinced of flight during a doping control in Marrakech in March 2019, which she has always denied, accusing the trio of controllers of not having followed any procedure and one of them of having been violent.

"The elements that she (Clémence Calvin) produces in support of her allegations are not such as to call into question the findings made by sworn officers which, contrary to what is argued, are not tainted with inconsistencies or contradictions ", notes in its decision the Council of State, which followed the public rapporteur.

Her confirmed suspension maintains a question mark over the career of the 30-year-old European marathon runner-up, aged 30, who will thus be deprived of the Tokyo Games, postponed to the summer of 2021, and the Worlds of Eugene (Oregon, United States) in 2022.

Her husband Samir Dahmani, also an international athlete and suspended for four years for opposing the doping control of his partner in Marrakech, was also dismissed by the Council of State of his appeal.

AFLD welcomed the decision.

"We were serene, but we are very satisfied. The Council of State definitively agrees with the AFLD and comes to close a controversy which had no place to be", declared to AFP the secretary general of the agency, Mathieu Teoran.

"The Council of State confirms that there were facts against a false version developed by athletes to try to escape their responsibilities," he added.

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