Olympic Hurdles Champ Brianna McNeal Banned For 5 Years After Missing A Drug Test While Recovering From An Abortion: I Am Being Excommunicated As If I Was Shooting Up Drugs

July 6, 2021 by Nick Fenley in Sports with 0 Comments

Olympic Hurdles Champ Brianna McNeal Banned For 5 Years After Missing A Drug Test While Recovering From An Abortion: I Am Being Excommunicated As If I Was Shooting Up Drugs

Brianna McNeal, who won gold in the 100-meter hurdles event at the 2016 Olympics, has been banned from the Olympic Games for the next five years.

Back in January 2020, the gold-medal Olympian missed a drug test. However, she revealed that she missed the test because she was recovering from an abortion she got just two days prior. While verifying this, she mistakenly provided officials paperwork with the wrong date of her procedure (she was 24 hours off). As a result, Brianna McNeal was suspended. Her representatives claimed the suspension was a result of “a misunderstanding related to an explanation.”

However, Brianna McNeal decided to appeal the decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). During the appeal, she was allowed to participate in the Olympic trials–ultimately qualifying for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. Despite this, she is now barred from participating in the Olympic Games for the next five years after losing her appeal.

After receiving the news, Brianna McNeal spoke up on social media. In a lengthy series of Notes App screenshots posted to Instagram, she wrote:

“I sat through two hearings, one held April 2021 and July 2021, and listened to white European men tell me how my experience doesn’t match with their perspective. They criticized me, and overly judged my decision making, completely ignored the fact that I was under physical and mental trauma after undergoing an abortion, and that I was not in the right mental capacity when making certain decisions. They never expressed any sympathy with my situation… I couldn’t stop thinking to myself ‘how could these men tell me what type of experience I should have had; how can these men who would never in a million years be in my shoes tell me anything I should be going through?’ So instead of being met with some sort of compassion and understanding, I was being interrogated and stigmatized.”

She continued, claiming World Athletics is primarily concerned with a paperwork error and that she has never taken banned substances:

“Should my career pretty much be over because I had the date of my abortion wrong by 24 hours? The event did happen: it was 100% the reason why I missed the test. I was physically and emotionally drained that entire weekend… But World Athletics [is] hung up on paperwork instead of the real reason why I missed the test. As I stated, instead of being met with some empathy and understanding I was being overly judged and criticized by clerical error because they couldn’t possibly fathom being in my shoes. I am a clean athlete. Never have I ever take[n] any banned substance, but I am being treated like one of the worst dopers out there.”

Brianna McNeal continued:

“I am being excommunicated from the sport as if I was shooting up drugs my entire career. My peers and I know how screwed up and flawed the system is and this goes below the belt. Where are the people that [are] suppose[d] to protect the athletes that are doing the right thing and find themselves in human mistakes?… I can’t help but wonder if I was a white woman or a European, would I have been met with some sort of conversation? The public doesn’t seem to understand that I could have simply ignored the Missed Test explanation, and still not had a Whereabouts violation. But the way they sent the letter–they made me feel like I had to give them an explanation.”

The athlete proceeded to wrap up her post, stating she is heartbroken and doesn’t feel protected by the system:

“I did not want to disclose my abortion, and because the Missed Test was not even my main concern at the time due to mental and physical health, I produced an explanation that–in my memory–was correct at the time. After they learned that I did in fact have an abortion, they could have just charged me with the Missed Test and left it at that, but they made me relive this hellish experience. As a clean athlete, I do not feel protected by this system, but I guess my feelings are irrelevant, because the system just took away my career. I am grateful for everybody who has shown me support and compassion, but I will never recover from this heartbreak.”

This news comes just after Sha’Carri Richardson–the sixth fastest woman in recorded history–received a suspension for testing positive for marijuana. As a result, she is unable to participate in the 100-meter Olympic race.