(BBC) – Olympic 100m hurdles champion Brianna McNeal has been given a five-year ban from athletics for breaking anti-doping rules.
An Athletics Integrity Unit disciplinary tribunal found McNeal guilty of “tampering within the results management process”.
McNeal, 29, won gold at the 2016 Rio Games and was world champion in 2013.
The American has appealed against the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The appeal will be heard before this summer’s Tokyo Games and McNeal is still able to compete until the end of the US Olympic Team Trials on June 27.
The judgement was made at the end of April but has only now been released, while the ban is backdated to August 15 2020.
McNeal was provisionally suspended in February, though she said in a social media post at the time that she was “very clean, very honest and transparent”.
It is the second time the athlete has been banned for breaching anti-doping rules, having missed the 2017 World Championships while serving a one-year ban for missing three drug tests.
Tampering or attempted tampering with any part of doping control carries a ban of up to four years if proved, though McNeal could have faced a ban of up to eight years as it was her second breach.