DOHA, (Reuters) – American Christian Coleman’s dream of adding the 200 metres to the 100 metre world title he won on Saturday has ended after he pulled out of yesterday’s opening round because he was still “feeling the strain”.
Coleman was due to run in the second heat at the world championships on Sunday evening but his name was withdrawn from the start list hours before the race.
Manager Emanuel Hudson said the 23-year-old had not recovered from his exertions the previous night when he ran a personal best of 9.76 seconds.
“He is sore from yesterday and didn’t leave the stadium until after 1am,” Hudson said in a text message to Reuters. “Couldn’t take the strain today.”
Coleman had been expected to provide the main challenge to favourite and fellow American Noah Lyles.
Coleman was only cleared to compete earlier this month after the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) withdrew a whereabouts charge — a potential anti-doping violation — against him.
USADA charged him with three failures to properly file whereabouts information in a 12-month period but he escaped what should have been an automatic ban when it was ruled that one of the tests had to be backdated to outside the window.
Coleman has denied wrongdoing and insisted he is clean.
American Noah Lyles, the favourite to win the event, qualified for the semi-finals although he finished his heat in second place behind Jereem Richards of Trinidad.
Canadian Andre De Grasse, bronze medallist in the 100 metres on Saturday, won his heat while defending champion Ramil Guliyev of Turkey went through in second place in his heat, behind Britain’s Adam Gemili.
