CAS upholds 2-year doping ban on Brazilian judoka Silva

Olympic judo champion Rafaela Silva has lost her appeal against a two-year doping ban and will miss the Tokyo Games.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport on Monday upheld the sanction imposed by the International Judo Federation in January.

Silva tested positive for the banned substance fenoterol, which is used to treat asthma, in August 2019 after the Brazilian won her class at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru. At the end of the same month, she tested negative at the world championships in Tokyo, where she was third.

She was stripped of both medals and banned.

At her appeal in September, she claimed unintentional contamination at the Pan Am Games from her roommate or supporters. But the CAS panel said she failed to prove it.

Silva was the first Brazilian woman to win a judo world championship in 2013, and the first Brazilian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.