South African Long Jumper, Manyonga given Four-year Ban

Olympic long jump silver medallist, Luvo Manyonga has been banned for four years after failing to meet whereabouts criteria three times in 12 months.

As it is a second violation of the anti-doping code by the 30-year-old, he has been given double the normal two-year ban for whereabouts failures.

He was banned for 18 months in 2012 for testing positive for crystal meth.

Manyonga, who was world champion in 2017, won silver at the Rio Olympics, but will now miss both the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Games.

The ban has been backdated to 23 December 2020 – the date he was provisionally suspended – and will run until midnight on 22 December 2024.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) says athletes must provide “accurate and up to date” details about their whereabouts as a way to “ensure compliance to anti-doping rules”.

A whereabouts failure against an athlete will be recorded if they fail to submit their whereabouts by the required deadline, have not provided updated or sufficient details to administrators, or are not available for testing in an agreed 60-minute time slot.

Under World Athletics’ anti-doping rules, any combination of three whereabouts failures within 12 months is a violation.

Source: BBC