SWIMMING: Canada's Oleksiak suspended two years for whereabouts failures

Penny Oleksiak, Canada’s most decorated female Olympian, has accepted a two-year suspension for violating the anti-doping code after committing three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced Tuesday.

The 2016 Olympic 100-meter freestyle champion will be ineligible to compete until July 14, 2027. Any competitive results from June 16, 2025, onward are disqualified, including the forfeiture of medals, points, and prizes.

Under the whereabouts protocol, athletes must inform anti-doping authorities of their location for at least one hour each day to allow for unannounced, out-of-competition testing. Bans for whereabouts failures can range from one to two years.

In July, Oleksiak withdrew from the World Championships due to an investigation into an alleged breach of the anti-doping code under the whereabouts rule. At the time, Swimming Canada released a statement supporting her decision, emphasizing that they believed she was a clean athlete who had made an “administrative mistake.”

Oleksiak, who won sprint gold at the Rio Olympics as a 16-year-old in 2016, has also earned six other Olympic medals and nine medals across three World Championships. -Frank Pingue in Toronto/Reuters