Ethiopia’s middle distance runner has broken anti-doping rules, meaning Georgia’s Hunter Bell has taken silver from last year’s World Indoor Championships.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) suspended Ethiopian athlete Diribe Velteji for two years for violating anti-doping rules.
The decision, announced on Thursday (February 26), results in a change of podium from the 2025 World Indoor Athletics Championships in Nanjing, with Britain’s Georgia Hunter Bell moving from bronze to silver.
The case stems from an out-of-competition testing attempt on February 25 of last year. Anti-doping officials arrived at Welteji’s home, but her husband reportedly said the athlete was asleep. Despite the conflicting testimony that followed, the officers left without a sample.
While Ethiopia’s disciplinary committee initially cleared him in August 2025, World Athletics appealed to CAS.
A CAS arbitrator ruled that while Welteji’s failure to provide a sample was “negligent” rather than “intentional,” citing language barriers in part, he failed to provide a “persuasive justification” for the missed test.
Consequently, all his results from February 25, 2025 onwards have been disqualified. This includes her silver medal from Nanjing and her personal best of 3:51.44 at the 2025 Prefontaine Classic.
For British 1500m record holder Hunter Bell, the improvement adds another accolade to a career that already includes Olympic 1500m bronze and world 800m silver. The redistribution of medals also benefits Australia’s Georgia Griffith, who moves from fourth to bronze for her first individual senior world medal.
Welteji, the 2023 outdoor world silver medalist in the 1500m, is serving a provisional suspension from July 2025, which has seen her miss the 2025 world championships in Tokyo. His ineligibility will expire on June 30, 2027, allowing him to return in time for the 2027 World Athletics Championships in Beijing and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
