Olympic runner Taplin gets four year ban

Olympic runner Bralon Taplin lost his appeal against a four-year ban for dodging a doping test and will miss next year's Tokyo Games and the next two track world championships.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Tuesday it found Taplin's explanation "to be implausible" that he was never approached or chaperoned to give a sample after winning an April 2019 race in Grenada.

The CAS judge "was comfortably satisfied that the athlete was guilty of the offense of evading sample collection," the court said in a statement.

The 28-year-old Taplin, a former NCAA relay champion for Texas A&M who competes for Grenada, has been banned until September 24, 2023.

Taplin finished seventh in the 400 final at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and he is the eighth fastest man on the all-time list in the indoor 400.