Salwa Eid Naser: World 400m champion to miss Olympics following two-year ban

World 400m champion Salwa Eid Naser will miss the Tokyo Olympics after being banned for two years for breaching anti-doping rules.

The 23-year-old Bahraini was sanctioned after missing out-of-competition tests.

She ran 48.14 seconds to claim the world title in Doha in 2019.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) upheld an appeal against the decision by the World Athletics Disciplinary Tribunal to dismiss the charges in October 2020.

Her results from the World Championships - where she clocked the third-fastest time in history - will remain.

The ban runs from Wednesday to early 2023 with Naser having been provisionally suspended from 4 June to 14 October 2020.

Naser was originally charged with missing four anti-doping tests between 1 January 2019 and 24 January 2020.

She was found guilty of three whereabouts failures but a missed test on 12 April 2019 was dismissed by the tribunal after an investigation found the doping control officer had gone to the wrong address.

The CAS panel found Naser guilty of a violation of Article 2.4 of the IAAF anti-doping rules.

"Naser is sanctioned with a period of ineligibility of two years, commencing on the date of notification of this award, with credit given for the period of provisional suspension already served between 4 June 4 2020 and 14 Oct 2020," CAS said in a statement.

"All competitive results obtained by Naser from 25 Nov 2019, through to the date of notification of this award shall be disqualified, with all of the resulting consequences, including forfeiture of any medals, titles, ranking points and prize and appearance money.

Naser ran the third-fastest time in history to claim the world 400m title in 2019

"The panel's task was never to pronounce whether or not the athlete is or was a 'doping cheat', but only to decide whether she has been in breach of the anti-doping rules as charged and to impose a suitable sanction in accordance with the rules.

"The panel has found she was in breach and that throughout 2019 and into January 2020 her whole approach to the whereabouts requirements was seriously and inexcusably irresponsible."

CAS added that the "fault for this blow to her career is no-one's but hers".

"She attempted to escape the consequences of her actions by giving evidence which this panel found to be untruthful," added the panel.

"Such an approach from a top-level athlete is seriously undermining of the whole anti-doping program and is sanctioned accordingly."

In addition to the Tokyo Games, the Nigerian-born runner will also miss next year's World Championships in Oregon.

"I've never been a cheat. I will never be," Naser said in June 2020. "I only missed three drug tests, which is normal. It happens. It can happen to anybody. I don't want people to get confused in all this because I would never cheat.

"I would never take performance-enhancing drugs. I believe in talent, and I know I have the talent."