AMERICAN shot put athlete Raven Saunders has accepted a 30-month suspension for three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency announced the ban on Tuesday after the Tokyo Olympic silver medallist failed to provide accurate location information for random doping tests.
Saunders was part of the US registered testing pool when she committed three violations on April 19, 2024, May 17, 2024, and December 26, 2024.
The 29-year-old athlete previously served an 18-month ban for similar whereabouts failures from August 2022 to February 2024.
This marked her second anti-doping rule violation, leading to the enhanced 30-month penalty instead of the standard one to two years for first-time offenders.
Her suspension began on December 26, 2024, and all competitive results since that date have been disqualified.
Saunders finished fifth at the 2016 Rio Olympics before winning silver in Tokyo and placing 11th at last year’s Paris Olympics. – AFP