Ethiopia’s Alemtsehay Asefa has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for whereabouts failures.

The 25-year-old was issued with a Notice of Allegation by the AIU.

Her personal best is 2:24:42 from April 2022 in Enschede, Netherlands, which was a bit of an outlier performance, as she was unable to break the 2:30:00 barrier during all her other efforts.

Athletes are given a notice of allegation against them. Then they are provided with the opportunity to appeal the decision. The Court of Arbitration for Sport will see many cases. Some whereabouts failure cases can be turned over, such as Nigerian sprinter Tobi Amusan, who was tested frequently, and therefore more likely to miss tests. However, whereabouts failures also happen by athletes gaming the system.

For example, an athlete may miss two tests before it is mandatory to be available for the third time or face suspension. The first two test appointments may be missed while an athlete is likely to test positive. They will make themselves available and let the performance-enhancing drugs flush from the system. Some athletes have been known to load their phones with messages, so it is impossible to get a hold of them.

Spain’s Mo Katir is a recent example of an athlete who allegedly gaming the system. Apparently, he was home the third time that doping control officers knocked. There are allegations that he logged into the Athlete Biological Passport within minutes to manipulate the time that he was available. However, his father informed the officers that Katir was training 30 minutes away.

The 25-year-old accepted a two-year suspension.