Olympic Shot Putter Saunders Suspended 30 Months for Whereabouts Failures

Raven Saunders, the American women's shot put silver medalist from the Tokyo Olympics, has accepted a 30-month suspension from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period. This is Saunders's second violation related to whereabouts failures, having previously served an 18-month ban from August 2022 to February 2024 for similar offenses. The new suspension began on December 26, 2024, and disqualified her from all competitive results since that date. Saunders last competed in August 2024 at a Diamond League meet shortly after finishing 11th in the Paris Olympics. USADA imposed the extended ban due to the repeated nature of the violations and Saunders's degree of fault. Whereabouts failures involve missed drug tests or failures to properly inform testing officials of an athlete's location for random doping tests.