Decathlete Scantling and bobsledder Evans receive doping rule bans

Two US Olympians - Garrett Scantling and Aja Evans - were handed bans on Friday for breaching anti-doping procedures, the US Anti Doping Agency announced.

Garrett Scantling will miss the Paris Olympics due to a ban imposed after he falsified an email in trying to cover up a missed doping test. | Photo Credit: AP

Two US Olympians were handed bans on Friday for breaching anti-doping procedures, the US Anti Doping Agency announced.

Olympic decathlete Garrett Scantling has been suspended for three years after breaching ‘Whereabouts and Tampering’ anti-doping rule violations. Bobsledder Aja Evans, who won a bronze medal in the two-woman event at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, was given a two year suspension for failing to submit a a sample collection after notification.

Scantling, 29, finished fourth at the Tokyo Olympics last year in the decathlon.

Whereabouts rules are designed to ensure that athletes remain available and reachable for out of competition testing. USADA said that “within a 12-month period, Scantling accrued three Whereabouts Failures” and also altered an email in defense of his third failure, which constitutes a tampering violation.

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Scantling was successfully tested nine times between his first Whereabouts failure and his provisional suspension in July. “The rules keeping sport fair and clean can be inconvenient and burdensome, but athletes fulfilling their obligations under the rules is critical to protect the integrity of competition for all,” USADA chief executive officer Travis T. Tygart said.

“Even when a rule violation, like in this case, does not involve the use of prohibited drugs, it is paramount that truthful, open, and complete cooperation happens with organisations like USADA and the Athletics Integrity Unit when investigating any potential rule violations.”

Evans, 35, failed to submit to sample collection after being notified by a USADA doping control officer during an out-of-competition test on March 29, 2022. USADA said that Evans’ sanction was reduced from the default four-year period because her failure was not intentional, stating that she “negligently failed to submit to sample collection.”

Evans was an alternate at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and was fifth in the two-woman event with Jamie Greubel Poser at Pyeongchang in 2018, four years after medalling with the same pilot.

Evans has 14 medals on the World Cup circuit, including four golds.