Nigerian born Bahraini Athlete and Women World 400 meters champion Salwa Eid Naser has been provisionally suspended.
Salwa Eid Naser, won gold at the last World Championships in Doha, clocking a record time of 48.14 seconds-the the fastest time by a woman since 1985.
She has missed three drug tests in the last 12 months.
Athletes Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics tweeted her suspension.
‘The AIU has provisionally suspended Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain for whereabouts failures, a violation of the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules’.
A Whereabouts failure applies when an athlete fails to provide their Whereabouts on a quarterly basis to ensure they can be located for testing.
The World Anti-Doping code required athletes to comply with Whereabouts and testing obligations, and failure to comply with an obligation will result in failure.
Any athlete found of three such failures in a 12 month period will be treated as anti-doping violation and will be subjected to a two-year ban.
Salwa Eid Nasar, moved to Bahrain from Nigeria when she was 14 is a former world youth champion. She also won a silver medal in the 2017 world championships in London.
As athletes from Africa switching their nationalities to run for gulf states like Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, some elite Bahraini female athletes have faced doping charges in recent times.
In March this year, Kenyan born Bahraini athlete Ruth Jebet, the reigning Olympic 3000 m steeplechase champion and world record holder was suspended for four years.
Gulf countries have been wooing potential athletes from Africa, to add to their medal tally in the Olympics and World Championships.
This ‘poaching’ has been severely criticized by present and former African athletes and governments.
Salwa Eid Nasar after his victory in Doha, that her next aim was to eclipse the world record of 47.60 seconds held by Marita Koch of erstwhile East Germany since 1985, which is one of the longest-standing records in athletics history.
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