Colombian track star handed 18-month ban for whereabouts failures

Colombian track rider Martha Bayona has been handed an 18-month ban after recording three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period.

The UCI anti-doping tribunal has backdated the ban to April 23, 2025, meaning that it will expire on October 22 of this year. 

“The Tribunal found the rider guilty of an anti-doping rule violation due to three whereabouts failures in a 12-month period and imposed an 18-month period of ineligibility on the rider,” read a statement from the UCI.

Bayona was twice a silver medallist in the keirin at the World Championships, in Hong Kong in 2017 and in Glasgow in 2023. She won gold in both the keirin and the 500m time trial at the Pan American Championships in 2024.

The 30-year-old issued a statement on social media on Thursday in which she accepted the sanction but denied any deliberate wrongdoing.

“I respect the decision of the tribunal, even though it hasn’t been an easy journey, on a sporting or a personal level,” Bayona wrote. “I want to make one thing very clear: it was never my intention to evade controls, far less to cheat.”