Qatar’s Mohammed Al Garni receives four-year doping ban

The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) has banned Qatar’s young Asian 1,500M champion Mohammed Al Garni for four years.

The 24-year-old Moroccan-born was one of 33 athletes who were handed varying degrees of bans by the athletics world body yesterday.

Al Garni, who was a 1,500M semifinalist at the 2012 London Olympics, was sanctioned after he refused to attend a drug test in Ifrane, Morocco, on April 9, 2016.

Al Garni was seen as a very promising athlete. He had come into his elements in the last three years, winning seven gold medals at outdoor and indoor events.

He had completed a 1,500-3,000 double at this year’s Asian Indoor Championships in Doha.

Al Garni’s competition ban will run until July 3, 2020.