Olympic medalist Alysha Newman banned for missed doping controls after ending career

MONACO (AP) — Olympic bronze medalist Alysha Newman was banned for 20 months on Friday for missed drug tests, though track and field investigators accepted she had ended her career as a pole vaulter.

Newman, now aged 31, took bronze for Canada at the 2024 Paris Olympics and last competed at a pair of Diamond League meetings last May in Qatar and Morocco.

The Athletics Integrity Unit said Newman was unavailable for an unannounced doping control in February last year and twice more in August. Three so-called “whereabouts” failures in a 12-month period can be prosecuted as an anti-doping rules violation.

At the third incident, the AIU said in its published verdict the athlete told a sample collection official “she had to leave immediately to participate in the filming of a television game show.”