CAS upholds McNeals five-year ban, hurdles champ to miss Tokyo Olympics

American Olympic 100 metres hurdles champion Brianna McNeal will miss the Tokyo Games – and even the 2024 Paris Olympics – after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed her appeal against a five-year ban for an anti-doping rule violation.

McNeal, who had been charged and provisionally suspended for “tampering within the results management process” in January, was sanctioned by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) as it was her second violation of World Athletics’ anti-doping rules.

The ban is effective from Aug. 15, 2020, and will run until mid-August 2025. McNeal had appealed against the decision to CAS, which heard the case ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

“The CAS Panel dismissed the appeal filed by Brianna McNeal and partially upheld the appeal filed by World Athletics,” it said in a statement on Friday.

CAS added that all McNeal’s competitive results from Feb. 13 to Aug. 14 last year will also be disqualified.

McNeal, who won gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics and was world champion in 2013, had denied testing positive for any banned substance.

The 29-year-old led a U.S. clean sweep of the 100m hurdles podium at the 2016 Olympics but was banned for a year when she missed three out-of-competition drug tests, which constitutes a rule violation. That ban, which was applied for the 2017 season, resulted in her missing the World Championships that year.