Setting the Record Straight
© Sylvain Riouall
Marathon Runner · Republican Guard (Gendarmerie Nationale) · French National Team
On August 3, 2024, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) communicated its decision and suspended Mehdi Frère for a period of two years, due to whereabouts failures. This page explains the facts clearly and without omission.
Who is Mehdi Frère?
Mehdi was born on July 27, 1996. A member of the Republican Guard — an elite branch of the French military — he built a high-performance athletics career alongside his duties as a soldier, specialising in the marathon and road running. Mehdi established himself as one of the finest long-distance runners of his generation in France, earning eight senior international selections and six youth international selections for the French national team.
His story is one of kindness, camaraderie and relentless dedication: training volumes reaching 150 to 200 kilometres per week, while fulfilling the demands of military life. At the end of 2023, in Valencia, he reached the peak of his career — setting the second-fastest marathon time ever recorded by a French athlete, finishing 1st European and 9th overall, and securing his place on the Olympic team for Paris 2024. Clock stopped at: 2h05'43''.
© Jean-Marie Hervio
© Stadion
Career performers
Anti-doping context
At the elite level of athletics, a number of leading athletes are placed in one of the Registered Testing Pools (RTPs), managed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on behalf of World Athletics, or by national anti-doping bodies.
Globally, all athletes can be subjected to anti-doping tests at any time — at home, in training, while travelling — without any prior warning. In addition, athletes included in an RTP must update an official app called ADAMS (World Anti-Doping Agency's Anti-Doping Administration and Management System) every single day, declaring a one-hour time window during which they are reachable and their exact location. If that information is inaccurate, or updated too late for a test to take place, it counts as a whereabouts failure. Three failures within any twelve-month period automatically trigger a two-year suspension — regardless of intent or circumstances.
A prohibited substance is found in the athlete's sample. This is doping.
The athlete has not properly fulfilled their ADAMS obligations. No substance involved. Not an indication of doping.
Doping control officer (DCO) physically goes to the declared location during the one-hour time slot and the athlete is not there; or can't be located; or the address description is not clear enough.
Doping control process was not initiated in the first place. The information in ADAMS is found to be inaccurate upon review.
Mehdi Frère's case: all three failures are purely administrative. He was never a no-show. Between February 26, 2023 and August 3, 2024, he completed 19 (nineteen) anti-doping out-of-competition tests — each time a DCO came looking for him, he was easily found and tested. No issues, no drama.
A welcomed, appreciated and logical inclusion based on his performance level. From that point on, he is required to submit his whereabouts daily in ADAMS.
Following his exceptional performances in late 2023 and his Olympic qualification, Mehdi was also included in the International RTP of the AIU — a logical development, with Mehdi welcoming further testing and intelligence gathering in the effort to help participate in doping-free and clean sport.
Following three alleged whereabouts failures, the AIU issued a provisional suspension on June 4, 2024 — forcing Mehdi out of the European Championships in Rome and the Paris Olympics. The two-year ban was confirmed on August 3, 2024, after his appeal at CAS was unsuccessful.
Transparency & openness
Throughout his career, and right up until his suspension, Mehdi made every single one of his training sessions publicly visible on Strava — the platform used by runners worldwide to log and share their activities. His location, his distances, his pace, his routes: everything was there, visible to anyone, at any time.
During the hearing at CAS, Mehdi highlighted this as evidence of his openness: he had nothing to hide, and made no effort to conceal his whereabouts or activities. CAS acknowledged this, but ruled that Strava cannot substitute for an athlete's obligations in relation to whereabouts — the two systems are separate, and the anti-doping authorities are not required to search social platforms to locate an athlete.
All activities logged throughout his career — publicly accessible, as they always have been.
The facts
Three failures recorded against Mehdi relate exclusively to administrative lapses in the ADAMS app — whereabouts information that was inaccurate or submitted too late for a potential test to be carried out. Here is what happened in each of the three cases.
February 23, 2023 — Return from the training camp in Kenya
Mehdi had been residing in and training from Kechei's camp in Iten, Kenya — a well-established property frequented by local and international athletes, community leaders, and government representatives. In ADAMS, he had declared his one-hour slot at that location for the evening of February 23, between 20:30 and 21:30. In reality, he had already boarded a flight back to France — meaning the location he had declared was no longer where he actually was.
Mehdi explained this oversight as follows: he updated his information as soon as he had a reliable internet connection at the airport, but faced complications dealing with travel decisions, competition scheduling and weather forecasts for two different events in Europe, combined with training stress and logistical issues. The CAS Panel took note of these explanations, but concluded that the failure was established: the information on file was objectively incorrect at the time of the declared time slot.
He was tested on February 26, 2023, in Naples — three days after the whereabouts failure.
September 18, 2023 — Training camp & World Championships in Riga
Mehdi Frère had just completed a training camp at the CNEA in Font-Romeu — France's national high-altitude training centre — where he was sleeping in a hypoxic chamber and providing a urine sample to the medical staff every morning. He then travelled to Saint-Jean-de-Monts for a national camp, but made an error in ADAMS: his overnight accommodation was not properly updated, leaving Font-Romeu listed as his address despite being nearly 8 hours away by car.
Separately, his participation in the World Road Running Championships in Riga — announced by the French federation on July 4, 2023 — was not entered into ADAMS in time, with updates submitted after the declared time slots had passed. Mehdi Frère did not contest this failure.
He was tested on September 29, 2023, in Riga, before the race.
February 22, 2024 — Return from the training camp in Kenya
Mehdi was again returning from a training camp in Kenya. His ADAMS information indicated he would be at Kechei's camp in Iten on February 22 and 23, 2024, between 21:00 and 22:00. On the morning of February 23, 2024, an AFLD DCO — present at Charles de Gaulle Airport to test another athlete — spotted Mehdi in the arrivals area. Mehdi had in fact left Nairobi the previous evening on a flight departing at 23:15 and had just landed in Paris.
His ADAMS information had not been updated before his departure. As with the first failure, he contested this finding, explaining that updates were made as soon as it was practically possible. The CAS found the facts established: the information on file did not correspond to his actual location during the declared time slot.
He was tested on February 25, 2024, in Albufeira, Portugal.
Important: CAS expressly acknowledged that there was "no element in the file suggesting that Mehdi Frère attempted to render himself unavailable for unannounced testing." The two-year ban is the strict, automatic consequence of accumulating three whereabouts failures within twelve months — not evidence of deliberate cheating or intent to evade anti-doping controls.
What comes next
Behind the suspension, there is a story — one of hurt, resilience of a human being navigating an unprecedented situation while continuing to work on self-improvement, training and desire to compete in the military sphere, and to prepare for his return to the highest level of the sport.
A documentary following Mehdi's journey through this period, and his comeback to elite athletics, is currently in production. More to follow.
© Paola Tertrais / @paollla.pix