Story at a glance
- An American Olympic champion is in danger of missing the upcoming Tokyo games after receiving a five-year ban in a doping case.
- Rollins-McNeal is appealing the ruling, which could salvage a potential 100-meter hurdles race in the Tokyo Olympics next month.
- Should the ban stick, Rollins-McNeal would miss the 2020 games and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
An American Olympic champion is in danger of missing the upcoming Tokyo games after receiving a five-year ban in a doping case.
The Athletics Integrity Unit said former hurdles gold medalist Brianna Rollins-McNeal’s ban was for allegedly “tampering within the result’s management process” of doping samples, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
Rollins-McNeal missed the 2017 season due to a yearlong ban for missing tests, according to ESPN.
The 29-year-old is appealing the ruling, which could salvage a potential 100-meter hurdles race in the Olympic games next month. Should the ban stick, Rollins-McNeal would miss the 2020 games and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport temporarily froze the ban, which will allow her to compete in the June Olympic trials. Rollins-McNeal’s full appeal will take place prior to the Tokyo games, according to the AP.
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The Tokyo Games, slated to begin July 23, have been a consistent source of controversy as medical professionals warn that the global contest could spring a new coronavirus variant. Head of the Japan Doctors Union, Naoto Ueyama, expressed his concern in May that a new strain could emerge from the Tokyo Olympics, as the delayed summer games will include “all of the different mutant strains that exist in different spaces.”
“We cannot deny the possibility of even a new strain of the virus potentially emerging,” Ueyama said at a press conference. “If such a situation were to arise, it could even mean a Tokyo Olympic strain of the virus being named in this way, which would be a huge tragedy and something which would be the target of criticism, even for 100 years.”
Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee president Seiko Hashimoto has maintained the Olympics will proceed as planned, saying the committee “cannot postpone again.”
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