The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) has announced that Polish triathlete Robert Karaś has been given an eight-year ban after testing positive for a banned substance.
An independent arbitrator issued the sanction after an evidentiary hearing on December 20, 2024 – with the length of the ban explained by the fact this is the Warsaw athlete’s second violation in a decade.
The 35-year-old tested positive for clomiphene following an in-competition urine sample collected at the Florida ANVIL Ultra Triathlon on February 24, 2024 by USADA, who were contracted by event organisers to conduct testing and results management.
Clomiphene is a Specified Substance in the class of Hormone and Metabolic Modulators and is prohibited at all times under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policies, and the World Triathlon Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code and the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.
Who is Robert Karaś?
In the full arbitration award document, which is linked here, Karaś is described as: “An elite-level, 35-year-old ultra endurance athlete from Poland. He holds an impressive list of athletic achievements, including setting multiple world records.
“Specifically, Respondent holds the double ultra triathlon world record, which consists of a 4.7-mile swim, a 223-mile bike ride, and 52-mile run. He also holds the triple ultra triathlon world record, consisting of a 7-mile swim, a 340-mile bike ride, and a 78-mile run.
“In the 2024 Florida ANVIL Ultra Triathlon event, which gave rise to his positive clomiphene test, Respondent was the only person to complete the 5x ultra triathlon event. That event consisted of a 12-mile swim, 560-mile bike ride, and 131-mile run. He completed the event in 60 hours, which set another world record.”
Suspended until 2033
Karaś was already serving a two-year ban imposed by the International Ultra Triathlon Association (IUTA) after testing positive for multiple banned substances in Brazil in May 2023, when he broke the world record in the 10-time Ironman distance. As a result he was stripped of the record.
That suspension remains in effect until 29 May, 2025 – so his new ban will commence the next day, and he will not be able to compete again until 2033.
Karaś received an extended period of ineligibility under the rules because this was his second anti-doping rule violation within a 10-year period.
The first anti-doping rule violation came when he tested positive for multiple prohibited substances from a sample collected at the direction of the International Ultra Triathlon Association (IUTA), which USADA verified through its investigation in this case.
Although the IUTA is not a signatory to the Code, USADA and all other Code signatories recognize sanctions by bodies that are not Code signatories if the sanction issued was within the non-signatory’s authority and the anti-doping rules of the non-signatory are otherwise consistent with the Code. The IUTA fits those criteria, and therefore, USADA has recognized the IUTA’s sanction.
All medals, points and prizes Karaś achieved since the date of his second positive test in February 2024 will now be forfeited, and all of his competitive results from that date disqualified.
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