The United States athlete was sanctioned for committing three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period.

According to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Saunders was part of the Registered Testing Pool of the national anti-doping agency during the whereabouts failures.

Those part of the USADA Registered Testing Pool is subject to whereabouts requirements to carry out out-of-competition testing.

The three failures happened on January 8, May 26 and August 15 of last year.

"The accumulation of three Whereabouts Failures within a 12-month period constitutes a rule violation under the USADA Protocol for Olympic and Paralympic Movement Testing, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee National Anti-Doping Policy, and the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules, all of which have adopted the World Anti-Doping Code," a statement from USADA read.

The Charleston-born athlete's ineligibility period began on August 15 2022.

As a result, all results achieved by the athlete on and subsequent to August 15 last year has been disqualified.

Any medals or prizes achieved during the period must be forfeited as well.

"Accurate Whereabouts information is crucial to locate athletes for effective out-of-competition testing, which helps deter and detect doping by enabling no-advance notice sample collection," USADA said.

"This is especially important because some prohibited substances have limited detection windows and the most effective test timing must remain unpredictable.

"All athletes within USADA’s RTP and Clean Athlete Pool are required to provide accurate and up-to-date whereabouts in accordance with the anti-doping rules."

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