USA Olympic 200m finalist Deajah Stevens who was provincially suspended in May has been banned for the Tokyo Games in 2021 for whereabouts failure.
The 25-year-old has been banned for 18 months from 17 February to 16 August 2021, eight days after the rearranged Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to finish.
Deaja, the 200m US 2017 Champion who at the 2016 US Olympic Trials, she finished in second place to qualify her for the 2016 Olympics. In Rio, she took 7th place in the 200m final.
The Athletics Integrity Unit handed out the ban for missed tests in February, August and November 2019.
The ruling said that on the first occasion, the doping control officer could not reach the American’s specified location because of restricted access at the given address in Oregon and attempts to reach her by phone were unsuccessful.
For the early-morning August 2019 test in West Hollywood, Stevens claims her phone had run out of battery overnight and she only saw the five missed calls when she woke up. Three knocks on her door over a 22-minute span went unanswered.
On the final missed test, Stevens said she was at her residence during the 60-minute window but had changed her phone number to avoid harassment by an unknown individual who had threatened her fiance’s life.
According to the doping control officer, access to the building on the final visit was restricted as Stevens’ name was not on the building directory, which the sprinter said she requested because of the claims of harassment.
DiscernSport