The 22-year-old, who won gold at the World Championships in Doha last year, was charged and provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) in June.
According to World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, any combination of three whereabouts failures — filing failures or missed tests — within a 12-month period by an athlete constitutes an anti-doping violation.
Athletes guilty of whereabouts failures could face two-year bans or a minimum of one year, depending on the degree of fault.
In Naser’s case, the disciplinary tribunal upheld three of the four AIU charges against her — a filing failure effective January 1, 2019 and two missed tests, on March 12 last year and January 24, this year.
However, the tribunal found in Naser’s favour with regard to a third alleged missed test on April 12, 2019, which resulted in the charges being dismissed because her three whereabouts failures did not occur within a 12-month rolling period.
“This was a case very much on the borderline and we hope the athlete will learn from the experience and heed the AIU’s warnings,” the tribunal said in a statement here.
Naser, who was born to Nigerian parents from Anambra State, switched allegiance to Bahrain four years ago and has since won a lot of laurels for her adopted country, including silver at the 2014 Youth Olympic Games; gold at the 2015 Asian Games, and another gold at the 2015 Military Games.
She is a member of Bahrain’s 4x400m women’s quartet tipped to win at least a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. The other members of the quartet, who were formerly Nigerians, are Edidiong Odiong, Iman Essa (formerly known as Endurance Udo), and Adekoya.
