Christian Coleman to return at Millrose Games
It will be his first race in nearly two years
World 100m champion Christian Coleman will be racing for the first time in nearly two years at New York’s Millrose Games next month. The American sprinter served an 18-month suspension for breaching anti-doping whereabouts rules, forcing him to sit out the Tokyo Olympics last summer.
Coleman’s last race was in February 2020. He was provisionally suspended by the AIU in June 2020 for missing three drug tests within a 12-month period, and in October 2020 he was officially given a two-year ban, which would have forced him to sit out all competitions until May 2022. Later in April 2021, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced his ban to 18 months, which made him eligible to race as of November 2021. This will give the 25-year-old an opportunity to qualify for and defend his title at the World Championships, set to take place in Oregon in July.
His first race back will be on January 29, and in an interview with Reuters, Coleman made it clear that he does not intend this race to merely be a rust-buster. “I want to win,” he said. “I think I have a higher standard for myself than just being back out there and being average.”
Coleman has never failed a drug test, but he admitted in the interview that he needs to be more responsible when it comes to the whereabouts rules, which requires athletes to make themselves available for random out-of-competition testing and state a location and one-hour window where they can be found on any given day. “Those are the rules and I just have to do better,” he said.
The Millrose Games will take place on Saturday, January 29 at the Armory in New York City. For more meet information, click here.
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