#US sprinter Deajah Stevens banned from 2021 Olympics

American sprinter Deajah Stevens has been banned from competing for 18 months, which will include the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, after missing three doping tests throughout 2019, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced Thursday.

The reasoning for her third missed test, however, is noteworthy because the tribunal was informed that Stevens was forced to change her phone number because she was being harassed. There was a threat made against her fiancé’s life and she removed herself from her building’s directory in order to increase her privacy.

The incident was submitted as evidence to the AIU, an organization that prosecutes cases in track and field, to prove that Stevens was neither negligent nor at fault for the final missed test. The AIU claims that a member of the Doping Control Office (DCO) was successful in getting to her apartment, even without her name on the registry.

The AIU also noted that Stevens previously stated that she would have provided a sample to the DCO had the office “taken the necessary steps to notify” her.

“Despite our sympathy for the athlete, we have not been satisfied on a balance of probability that her behavior was not negligent,” the disciplinary panel said. “She should have been on red alert and conscious that she could not miss the next one.”

Stevens, who specializes in the 200 meters, claims she missed the previous tests because her phone had run out of battery overnight.

The tribunal said they factored in the “distress, fear and distraction caused by the harassment she experienced” by taking six months off of Stevens’ potential two-year ban. It was also her first offense.

After placing seventh in the final at the 2016 Rio Olympics, Stevens placed fifth at the 2017 world championships in London. The former Benjamin Cardozo High School star also helped bring the University of Oregon the 2017 national championship in the 200 and an NCAA championship in the 4×400 relay.