Athletics: Cyréna Samba-Mayela provisionally suspended for location failures

Olympic 100m hurdles vice-champion Cyréna Samba-Mayela, the only French medalist in athletics at the Paris Olympics, has been provisionally suspended due to three breaches of her whereabouts obligations, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) announced on Friday.

According to the AIU, Cyréna Samba-Mayela, 25, has been suspended since September 18. She risks up to two years of suspension for not having been located three times by the anti-doping authorities over the last twelve months, which means that she could miss the next Olympic Games in Los Angeles in July 2028.

The hurdler, European champion of the discipline in 2024 in Rome, was forced to withdraw this summer from the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham due to physical problems. After the Olympics, she left her coach, Irishman John Coghlan, whom she followed to Orlando (Florida) at the end of 2023. She joined Tonja Buford-Bailey in Texas, where she trains alongside American sprinter Gabby Thomas, Olympic 200m champion in Paris.

The Frenchwoman had been included in the AIU target group, and therefore forced to transmit a quarter-hour slot every day between 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. in order to be controlled. This obligation requires athletes to communicate their training, training and competition locations, and if they are absent or have incorrectly completed their information, this results in a failure.