AIU bans Italian Steeplechaser Ahemed Abdelwahed after long battle

In a major blow to his career, Italian 3000-meter Steeplechaser Ahemed Abdelwahed has been slapped with a 4-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) this week.

Abdelwahed captured silver at the European Athletics Championships with a blistering time of 8:22.35 last year, bringing home glory to Italy and to his Egyptian descendants. On the same day of his victory, he gave his urine sample to the AIU officers for a doping test.

A few weeks later, a WADA-accredited laboratory in Germany discovered that his sample contained an estimated concentration of 155 ng/mL of meldonium, the same substance that tennis star Maria Sharapova was banned for in 2016.

Abdelwahed gets tested

The AIU immediately informed Abdelwahed of their discovery and imposed a provisional ban on the athlete. The Italian, however, contested in a letter that he had never used meldonium in his life and asked for a longer period of time to have his supplementations examined.

The AIU has banned Ahmed Abdelwahed (Italy) for 4 years, from 7 September 2022 for the Presence/Use of a Prohibited Substance (Meldonium). DQ results from 19 August, 2022
Details here: https://t.co/Skuw6Dbdp6 pic.twitter.com/9AdbyOkNXT

— Athletics Integrity Unit (@aiu_athletics) December 14, 2023

The Italian’s quest

Abdelwahed then sent a list of his supplements to the agency and had them analyzed at a Turin laboratory to find out whether they had been contaminated with the substance.

By November 24, Abdelwahed had gone through a B analysis in the presence of Prof. Simone Cristoni. The next day, the B analysis revealed that its results coincided with those of his sample A, confirming that he had indeed tested positive for meldonium.

A few months later, the Italian explained to the agency that he never used the substance and that the amount of meldonium in his sample was very low and incompatible with any intake of meldonium for doping purposes. He supported this with additional proof from the Turin laboratory, where tests were performed on his hair and pubic hair and it was discovered that meldonium was absent.

The Forensics

In the succeeding months, the athlete continued to fight for his stance and argued, with the help of forensic toxicologist Prof. Salomone and CEO of Ion Source & Biotechnology SRL Prof. Cristoni that the meldonium found in his sample was the product of the biotransformation process of one of his supplements, Mythoxan Forte.

However, despite his team’s extensive efforts to explain the abnormal presence of meldonium in his body through complicated science, the AIU ultimately rejected his claims and banned him for four years, starting in September 2022.