Olympic gold medalist Ahmed Hafnaoui has received a 21-month suspension for three whereabouts failures, the World Aquatics Integrity Unit has said. Hafnaoui was previously giving a provisional suspension for the same violation late last year.
Hafnaoui, 22, admitted to the violation and the suspension is effective from April 11, 2024 until January 10, 2026.
Athletes are required to maintain their location for random drug testing in an online app, and missing three random tests in a 12 month period is considered a violation.
Sources tell SwimSwam that Hafnaoui missed two anti-doping tests while training in America and then a third after returning home to Tunisia amidst visa issues in the United States. More recently, he has been at a training camp in France with Ahmed Jaouadi and Rami Rahmouni working with French coach Philippe Lucas.
He is one of two swimmers currently listed as suspended for Whereabouts filings by the Aquatics Integrity Unit. The other, Turkish Olympian Viktoria Gunes, received a two-year suspension in 2023.
Hafnaoui was the surprise Olympic Champion at the Tokyo 2020 Games in the 400 meter freestyle, winning in a time of 3:43.36. His best time of 3:40.70 from the 2023 World Championships makes him the 6th-best performer in the history of the event.
Hafnaoui swam part of the 2023-2024 season at Indiana, after sitting out the 2022-2023 season due to eligibility issues, but he only competed in two meets in October for the Hoosiers before moving to California to train with The Swim Team (TST) and Mark Schubert. He ended up going back to Tunisia due to visa issues and competing in the World Championships in February of last year.
The same week in which his provisional suspension was announced is the same week that he entered the NCAA transfer portal. This suspension does not extent to the NCAA, though it would make for a complicated situation at most programs where coaches are also USA Swimming coaches.
His last meet came at the February 2024 World Aquatics Championships, where didn’t final in any of his events, placing 17th in the 400 and 1500 and 18th in the 800.
Hafnaoui won the 400m freestyle from lane 8 at the 2021 Olympic Games, going 3:43.36. He has been dealing with an injury, and decided not to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games after a disappointing World Championships in Qatar.
He also swam the 400 free, 800 free, and 1500 free at the 2023 World Championships in Fukuoka in July of 2023 and was the World Champion in the 800 and the 1500 while training with Indiana.
He said that he decided not to compete at the 2024 Olympic Games after a disappointing World Championships in Qatar and while dealing with an injury.
Hafanoui was the 2023 African Male Swimmer of the Year award winner in the annual Swammy Awards.
The Whereabouts requirement is well-briefed and clearly understood by both athlete and the coach. Missing three? Um yeah, it didn’t slip his mind.
In this era of StarLink (which T-Mobile will have phones that can communicate with anywhere) and AirTags, why does a swimmer need to enter their location in an app – why not just develop an app for smart phones/watches or give swimmers subject to testing an special airtag and let their location be tracked – then if the testers want to find them they know where to go at any time?
No one is accidentally missing their drug testing. They don’t need to be tracked. They need to be responsible.
Nah people accidentally miss drug tests all the time.
No one wants him to succeed as much as he himself does. He must be dealing with some nasty personal demons. Wishing him all the love and support.
Worst and Best thing to happen to him. Let him find himself and get his life back in order. Shame it had to happen this way. Wish him the best.
Another Tunisian
Ahmed Hafnaoui and Oussama Mellouli
Two legendary Tunisian swimmers.
Both swam the same events.
Both received suspension from World Aquatics/FINA, 21 months for Hafnaoui and 18 months for Mellouli.
What are the odds?
The odds of it happening once, squared.
Hope you read these comments and use them as fuel for your next comeback! You’re still young and this is not the end for you. I believe in you… keep your head up high
It’s interesting how differently this type of news is received on a swimming site compared to a track site. A track forum would immediately label him a doper and basically discount every medal as illegitimate.
I expected quite a bit of that here. Instead it’s majority different focus and the handful of cynics are overly tame and reluctant.
I’ll say I’m very glad he did not swim in Paris. That is exactly the opposite of how I felt entering 2024. He was the swimmer I was most excited to watch.
His 2023 worlds was freakishly good. It would have been triple gold if not for misjudging the finish at 400. Very rare to have that type of range,… Read more »
Let’s be honest, an athlete doesn’t have to collect whereabouts failures to be labeled a doper on LetsRun. The mere act of running fast is taken as proof by many. I do enjoy the un-moderated style sometimes, but I am glad this site doesn’t allow things to devolve to the same level of discourse as some other sites.
I don’t think the internet or that cesspoll is the orgin of the extreme cynicism in that community. Unfortunately the sports history really begs for such suspicions. Little needs to be said about before the millennium but since then it’s never been much a secret the rise of rift valley African superstars has involved lots of European pharmacist, or the United States has laughably unclean hands and the whole culture down to the highschool level is just disturbingly toxic it seems – the Isaam Asinga case is a great example where it’s obvious to anyone with a brain the coach is behind the teenage wonderkind being doped, but the way the proceedings acrively dance around that and the fact this… Read more »
Salwa Eid Naser
the implication would be that he was doping at indiana which is inconceivable given how ray feels about that subject
Or maybe that’s why he lasted such a brief period there.
But he didn’t stay that long and left under vague, unclear circumstances.
It is very clear what he is.
I’m sad to say this but a lot of this has to do with nationality. If he were Chinese or Russian this entire website would do this exact labeling you’re describing
In tennis, an Italian player sponsored by Nike can fail two drug tests and get only a three-month suspension—conveniently timed between Grand Slams.