South Africa’s Olympic long jump silver medallist Luvo Manyonga has been provisionally suspended for anti-doping whereabouts failures.
The 30-year-old, who battled drug addiction before winning silver at Rio 2016, was charged by the Athletics Integrity Unit on Friday.
The delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics are scheduled to start on 23 July 2021.
Manyonga is among the favourites to win gold in Tokyo after winning the 2017 World and 2018 Commonwealth titles.
In 2012, Manyonga was banned from athletics for 18 months after testing positive for crystal meth.
The AIU says athletes must provide “accurate and up-to-date” details about their whereabouts as a way to “ensure compliance to anti-doping rules”.
A whereabouts failure against an athlete will be recorded if they fail to submit their whereabouts by the required deadline, have not provided updated or sufficient details to administrators, or are not available for testing in an agreed 60-minute time slot.
Under World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, any combination of three whereabouts failures within 12 months is an anti-doping rule violation.
A ban up to two years could be imposed for the offence.
In May last year, Manyonga was fined for public drinking and contravening South Africa’s strict lockdown restrictions.
