American Alpine Racer Sanctioned by U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for Whereabouts Failures

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced yesterday that alpine racer and former Olympian Breezy Johnson, of Victor, Idaho, had been sanctioned for three Whereabouts Failures in a 12 month period.

Via social media, Johnson clarified that this sanction—which bans her from racing until December 2024—doesn’t mean she tested positive for doping. Whereabouts Failures, in USADA nomenclature, mean an athlete has either missed a drug test or failed to adhere to the USADA’s filing requirements.

“I would like to clarify that filing failures are NOT a drug test failure but, as the name describes, an issue with drug testers being able to find me,” Johnson wrote on Instagram today. “I have been tested many times over the last year and a half.”

The USADA opted to impose a 14-month sanction, explaining in a press release that Johnson’s “fault was relatively low given the circumstances of the case.” The USADA didn't elaborate on these circumstances.

The USADA backdated Johnson’s sanction to October 10, 2023—the date of her third Whereabouts Failure. The sanction retroactively disqualifies Johnson from any results achieved during the 2023-2024 competitive alpine racing, although she noted on Instagram that she was “unable to race this past season,” presumably due to complications with the USADA.

Johnson wrote that she will next race at the upcoming Beaver Creek, Colorado, speed series which is scheduled to start on December 14th, 2024.

Olympic-caliber athletes must file their location information with the USADA—an independent nonprofit dedicated to preventing Olympic, Paralympic, Pan American, and Parapan American athletes from using banned substances—so that testers can find them and conduct drug screenings.

Athletes supervised by the USADA can be drug tested at any place and time during the year without advance notice, even outside of competition.

“Accurate Whereabouts information is crucial for effective out-of-competition testing, which helps deter and detect doping by enabling no-notice sample collection,” the press release from the USADA reads.

Johnson has earned several podium finishes across her alpine racing career, and placed 7th during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics downhill event.

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