American sprinter Erriyon Knighton has been handed a four-year ban, ruling the 21-year-old out of the 2028 Los Angeles Games, Afrosport reports.
The two-time Olympic finalist tested positive for the anabolic steroid – trenbolone – in March 2024, a banned substance used for muscle growth.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced on Friday that its panel upheld appeals from both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) after a U.S. tribunal had initially cleared Knighton, accepting his explanation that the positive test was caused by contaminated meat.
WADA and the AIU claimed that the evidence presented was statistically impossible and pushed for the maximum four-year sanction.
CAS agreed, stating: “After considering the scientific evidence, the CAS panel determined that there is no proof that would support the conclusion that oxtail imported into the USA would be likely to contain trenbolone residues at the level required to have caused the positive test.”
The ban is backdated to include more than two months of provisional suspension Knighton served last year and will now run until early July 2029.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency had previously accepted Knighton’s explanation of oxtail contamination from a bakery in Florida, but WADA and World Athletes successfully challenged the ruling. CAS emphasised that the athlete’s defence did not meet the burden of proof.
“World Athletes and WADA considered that the evidence submitted by the athlete and his explanations of a meat contamination scenario fell short of the required proof of source and were statistically impossible,” the panel said.
Knighton, the sixth-fastest man in history over 200 metres with a personal best of 19.49 seconds, finished fourth in the event at both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics.
Despite claiming silver and bronze medals in the 200m at the past two World Championships, he did not qualify for this year’s Worlds in Tokyo, which begins on Saturday.
