The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has banned Ethiopian Diribe Welteji Kejelcha for 2 years for Failing to submit to Doping Control. The athlete’s sanction runs from 8 July 2025 to 30 June 2027. All results are disqualified from 25 February 2025 to the date of the CAS award.
The 2024 Olympic 1500 metre finalist simply refused to submit to doping control officers. As part of the sanction, Welteji will forfeit all results from Feb. 25, 2025, onward, including her silver medal at the 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships that took place in Nanjing, China.
Diribe Welteji has been banned for two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) February 26, 2026
The Ethiopian athlete received the ban after failing to provide a sample during an out-of-competition test on February 25, 2025.
Ethiopia's anti-doping body initially cleared her in August but… pic.twitter.com/sQQaHK5jiI
She finished fourth at the Paris Olympic Games in the 1500m. At the 2025 Prefontaine Classic, Welteji set her current personal best in the metric mile, clocking a world-class 3:51.44. The 23-year-old holds the world U20 record for the mile (1609m) at 4:20.98, which she set at the 2023 Riga World Junior Athletic Championships.
Apparently, Ethiopia’s anti-doping body cleared her in August, but World Athletics appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and she was provisionally suspended for the Tokyo World Athletics Championships.
