Olympic sprinter Erriyon Knighton has been suspended four years after appeals over a positive drug test from March 2024.
In June 2024, Knighton was found by an independent arbitrator to have no fault after testing positive for a metabolite of trenbolone (a banned steroid). According to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency at the time, the arbitrator determined the positive test was more likely than not caused by consuming meat (oxtail) contaminated with trenbolone, which is used legally in beef cattle produced in and exported to the U.S.
World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed that ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Aug. 8, 2024, seeking a four-year ban. They said Knighton’s argument of meat contamination fell short of required proof of innocence and was statistically impossible.
Also on Aug. 8, 2024, Knighton finished fourth in the Olympic 200m for a second consecutive Games.
On Friday, CAS announced that Knighton is suspended four years.
The CAS panel “determined that there is no proof that would support the conclusion that oxtail imported into the USA would be likely to contain trenbolone residues at the level required to have caused the athlete’s adverse analytical finding.”
Knighton, 21, began his ban Friday with credit for more than two months served from April 12-June 19, 2024, during which he was provisionally suspended while awaiting the outcome of his case from USADA.
The ban would keep Knighton out of competition through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
CAS decisions are generally appealable only on limited procedural grounds to the Swiss Federal Tribunal. Knighton has not announced whether he plans to appeal.
Knighton’s agent, John Regis, said in a statement that the case is not over, called it “a travesty” and said that there was “no question that the meat that Erriyon ate was contaminated with the very substance he tested positive for.”
Last month, Knighton finished fifth in the 200m at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships, missing the U.S. team for this month’s World Championships in the event by one spot.
Knighton won 200m medals at the last two World Championships in 2022 (bronze) and 2023 (silver).
In 2021, he became at age 17 the youngest American man to race an individual Olympic event since Jim Ryun in 1964.
