Olympic 100m hurdles champion Brianna McNeal handed five-yr ban for doping violation

Olympics 100 metres hurdles champion, Brianna McNeal has been banned for five years for violation of the anti-doping rules, informed the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on Friday.

The American athlete has appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

"An update on the Brianna McNeal case: The Disciplinary Tribunal has sanctioned Brianna McNeal (USA) for 5 years, starting 15 Aug 2020, for tampering within the results management process, her second violation of the @WorldAthletics Anti-Doping Rules," the Athletics Integrity Unit tweeted.

"The athlete has appealed against the decision to CAS. Her appeal will be heard before the Tokyo Olympics. Yesterday, CAS granted the athlete provisional relief and temporarily stayed the DT decision to allow her to compete until the end of the USATF Olympic Trials on 27 June," it added.

Tokyo Olympics will begin on July 23 and the Games will run up to August 8 this year. The event was slated to be held last year, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, Indian wrestler Sumit Malik has failed his dope test and is now unlikely to join the Indian contingent for the showpiece event.

The news came as a shock to the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and assistant secretary Vinod Tomar confirmed that Sumit has failed his dope test and has bleak chances of participating in the Tokyo Olympics.

Currently, a total of 100 Indians athletes have qualified for Tokyo Olympics across 11 sports disciplines and about 25 more athletes are likely to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics details of which will emerge by end of June. Out of these 100 athletes, eight quotas were bagged by the wrestlers.

( With inputs from ANI )