CAS 2017/A/4967 Adel Mechaal v. IAAF & Agencia Española de Protección de la Salud en el Deporte (AEPSAD)
In December 2016 the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the Spanish Agency for the Protection of Health in Sport (AEPSAD) have reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Spanish Athlete Adel Mechaal for his whereabouts filing failures and 3 missed tests within a 12 month period. Consequently the AEPSAD sole arbitrator decided on 16 January 2017 to impose a 15 month period of ineligibility on the Athlete.
Hereafter in January 2017 the Athlete appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and requested the Panel to annul the AEPSAD decision of 16 Janurary 2017.
The Athlete disputed the composition, the impartiality and independence of the decision body in first instance and asserted that during Results Management several procedural irregularities occurred regarding the whereabouts and the notification of the missed tests leading to departures of the international standards. Further the Athlete argued that 2 of the 3 whereabouts filing failures were caused by system failures in ADAMS.
The Panel holds that in the first instance of the case the decision body should be pluripersonal and agrees that the impartiality and independence of the Spanish sole arbitrator was in question since he was also external legal advisor for AEPSAD and therefore should not have been selected as the sole arbitrator in the case.
Considering the evidence and circumstances in this case the Panel establishes that the AEPSAD notification about the Athlete’s first missed test on 8 December 2015 was correctly made due to circumstances on 29 January 2016. Meanwhile there was already a second missed test on 24 January 2016 while the communication of AEPSAD’s second notifiction was made on 11 February 2016. The third missed test was on 15 July 2016 and the IAAF notification was on 2 August 2016.
As a result of the sequence of events the Panel concludes that the Athlete was only aware of the first missed test on 29 January 2016, 5 days after he had missed the second test. For this reason and under the Rules the Panel deems that there were only 2 whereabouts missed tests and consequently the Athlete did not commit the reported anti-doping rule violation for 3 missed tests.
Further the Panel deems that the Athlete acted not in full compliance with his obligations to send his whereabouts to AEPSAD in January 2016 only by using e-mail in the situation that there were technical problems with ADAMS and a lack of availability of other electronic resources.
Therefore and in spite of the not completely compliant acting of the Athlete the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decides on 24 April 2018 that the Athlete’s appeal is assignable and to annul the AEPSAD decision of 16 January 2017.
