(Reuters) - Olympic alpine skiing downhiller Breezy Johnson was hit with a 14-month ban by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Monday for committing three whereabouts failures over a 12-month span.
One of the top U.S. downhillers, Johnson has collected seven podium finishes in Alpine World Cup races, including three runner-up results in 2021. She was seventh in the downhill at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
Whereabouts protocol requires an athlete to inform anti-doping authorities where they will be for at least one hour every day for unannounced out-of-competition testing, and bans for whereabouts failures can range from one to two years.
USADA said in a statement that it determined a 14-month period of ineligibility was appropriate because Johnson's degree of fault was relatively low given the circumstances of the case.
The anti-doping body did not say what those circumstances were.
Johnson's 14-month period of ineligibility began on Oct. 10, 2023, the date of her third whereabouts failure.
She will also have all competitive results from that date disqualified and forfeit any points and prize money.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
