Violation of doping rules
Olympic champion is blocked for months
04/17/2025 – 8:43 p.m.Reading time: 1 min.
Four years ago, Ahmed Hafnaoui experienced the greatest success of his career. The Tunisian is currently a long way from such highlights.
Tokyo Olympic champion Ahmed Hafnaoui may not take part in competitions by early 2026. The swimmer from Tunisia was blocked for 21 months due to violations of the reporting obligation in the anti-doping system.
Hafnaoui had admitted that they had violated the reporting obligation three times within a year. The lock applies retrospectively from April 11, 2024 and ends on January 10, 2026. All results of the 22-year-old from the deadline will be canceled. The freestyle specialist also misses the swimming world championships in Singapore, which will take place from July 11th to August 3.
In 2021, Hafnaoui won over 400 meters of freestyle at the Tokyo Olympics in Tokyo.
Two years later, he celebrated further success at the World Cup in Fukuoka: he became world champion over 800 and 1500 meters freestyle. At the games in Paris 2024, he was not at the start last year.
As part of the global fighting of doping, top athletes are obliged to regularly enter their locations in a system. This is intended to make unannounced controls possible. Several violations of this rule can also lead to locking without a positive test.