* Issam Asinga at the PURE Athletics Invitational in April
Photo Credit: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports
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Issam Asinga has been provisionally suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit just over a week shy of the World Championships in Budapest.
The organization announced on Friday that Asinga, the ground-breaking teenage sprint star from Montverde Academy who broke the World U20 record in the 100m and set a high school national record in the 200m over the outdoor season, was allegedly found to have used a prohibited substance via a recent sample.
Asinga, 18, was set to represent Suriname in the World Championships. Having won a South American Outdoor title in the 100m in a wind-legal 9.89 seconds, he was considered a potential medal candidate.
Asinga was given a notice of the AIU's allegations on August 9. The prohibited substance, GW1516, is banned under WADA.
The Athletics Integrity Unit, founded by World Athletics in 2017, was created to help find and combat doping in athletics.
Under World Athletics, a provisional suspension is "mandatory ... following an adverse analytical finding for any non-specified substance on the Prohibited List."
According to the AIU, provisional suspensions are made not as an "early determination of guilt," but as a way to protect and safeguard the interests of the sport.
Asinga will be unable to compete for Suriname temporarily until a final determination is made via a hearing by the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules or the Integrity Code of Conduct.
Asinga, a dual citizen of Suriname, Zambia and the United States by virtue of his parents, is a recent graduate of Montverde Academy. He broke the high school national record in the 200m in April, clocking a time of 19.97 seconds. In June, he ran 9.89 seconds at the South American Outdoor Championships. He produced five sub-10 second 100m races over the 2023 season, though his last was his first wind-legal performance.
In doing so, he surpassed Letsile Tebogo's World U20 record of 9.91, which had stood since 2022.
UPDATE, 2:52 PM CST:
Asinga has put out a statement relating to his provisional suspension.
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