ATHLETICS Botswana’s Nijel Amos handed three-year doping ban as AIU nabs another big fish

The 29-year-old was provisionally suspended in 2022 but will now be out for a longer period after admitting to using a banned substance.

Botswana’s former Olympic 800m silver medalist Nijel Amos is the latest high-profile athlete to be suspended over doping, having been handed a three-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU).

Amos, who took silver at the 2012 London Games, in what many called the greatest Olympic race in history when Kenyan David Rudisha lowered his world record, has been suspended after he tested positive for banned substance GW1516 with his ban starting in July 2022.

Amos matched Seb Coe, now World Athletics president, as the third-fastest man in history in the event (1:41.73) 11 years ago. Every runner’s time was the fastest ever for that finishing placement.

Amos escaped a longer four-year suspension, having admitted to the offence, adding to the fact that this is his first doping offence but his predicament adds to what has become a global problem within athletics.

“GW1516 is a prohibited substance under the WADA 2022 Prohibited List under the category S4 Hormone and Metabolic Modulators. It is a Non-Specified Substance prohibited at all times,” the AIU said in a statement while announcing Amos’ suspension.

“The period of ineligibility to be imposed is therefore a period of four years, unless the athlete demonstrates that the Anti-Doping Rule Violations were not intentional. The Athlete has failed to demonstrate that the Anti-Doping Rule Violations were not intentional.

“Therefore, the mandatory period of ineligibility is a period of ineligibility of four years. However, Rule 10.8.1 ADR provides that an athlete potentially subject to an asserted period of ineligibility of four years may benefit from a one-year reduction in the period of ineligibility based on an early admission and acceptance of sanction.”

“The Charge was issued to the Athlete on March 21, 2023, and, on April 10, 2023, the AIU received an Admission of Anti-Doping Rule Violations and Acceptance of Consequences Form signed by the athlete in which the athlete admitted the Anti-Doping Rule Violations and accepted the asserted period of Ineligibility of four years.”

“The athlete shall therefore receive a one-year reduction in the asserted period of ineligibility pursuant to Rule 10.8.1 based on an early admission and acceptance of sanction.”

Amos was provisionally suspended in July 2022 after failing the drug test during an out-of-competition test a month earlier, after a lab analysed the sample and notified the AIU.

He consequently missed last year’s World Championships in Eugene as he awaited his fate and will now have to wait until at least August 2025 to compete, potentially at the global event in Tokyo, Japan that year.

Amos has not won an Olympic or world championships medal since his silver in 2012 but had been a thorn in the flesh for Rudisha since they battled in London. In July 2019, he ran 1:41.89, the world’s best time since that London Olympic final.

At the Tokyo Olympics, Amos and American Isaiah Jewett got tangled in the final lap of their semi-final. In an act of good sportsmanship, the runners helped each other up and later jogged across the finish line together in the last two places. Amos was granted a place in the final but finished eighth.