American track and field will lose its top decathlete, Garrett Scantling, for the next three years.. While no one doubts the North American giant’s ability to produce another great combinero for the Paris Olympics, currently the 29-year-old athlete from Jacksonville, Florida, He will not be able to participate until the summer of 2025 because he missed three anti-doping tests in less than a year, the kind of sanction that left the then world champion in the 100 meters sprint Christian Coleman from the Tokyo Games.

Scantling was not found three times when the officers unexpectedly wanted to check on him at the time and place where he had stated he would be checked. It happened on August 25, 2021, January 24 and April 9, 2022. And that does not mean that he used doping, because in that time he successfully passed nine testsas explained in a statement issued by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), charged with sanctioning him.

At the last opportunity Scantling has provided the agency with a tampered email address, which is considered tampered. Adding that to the three absences would have meant a four-year sentence, reduced by one for admitting the offense and accepting the sanction within a 20-day period.

In addition, Scantling would lose his results between June 27 and July 21, 2022, dates of the manipulation and provisional suspension, although in reality he did not participate on these dates as he had already been removed from the US team at the Eugene World Cup in July.

“I worked very hard to get to the position I was in, but one mistake changes the whole course of my career. I own it and take responsibility, no matter how hard the consequences may seem for a clean athlete. I will now start coaching the youth and continue to build my coaching resume while taking care of my body for a possible comeback in 2025. But for now, I’m just trying to move on and be happy with what I’ve accomplished in my life so far, knowing I still have a long way to go,” Scantling wrote, according to NBC.

The decathlete, who achieved his personal best on May 7 in Fayetteville (Arkansas). With 8,867 points, he will probably close 2022 as world leader of the year in the disciplineand has been a four-time U.S. champion between indoor and outdoor courts, though he has not won a major all-around medal, as he was left at the gates of the podium at the Tokyo Olympics after Canada’s Damian Warner, Frenchman Kevin Mayer and Australia’s Ashley Moloney.