Olympics pole vaulter and OnlyFans star has been suspended
An Olympian who made headlines for her celebration at the Summer Games, has now been suspended from all competitions due to a whereabouts failure.
You may remember Alysha Newman from a couple of summers ago, after she celebrated her third placed finish in Pole Vault with a NSFW celebration.
Many wouldn't have recalled seeing an athlete twerking at the Olympic Games before the Canadian, but the 31-year-old made a statement in Paris by making history for two reasons.
The Canadian national record holder has now been handed a provisional suspension though, after she missed three doping tests across a 12-month period.
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Newman, who hasn't competed yet in 2026, will have to wait for a hearing conducted by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) before finding out the exact length of her suspension.
The AIU has not released information on when her missed tests were scheduled for.
A whereabouts failure is an anti-doping rule violation, which happens when an athlete is either unavailable for scheduled testing, or when they don't submit accurate location information.
It is required by athletes to regularly update their location using an app on their phones, even needing to offer a one-hour time slot where anti-doping testing can take place.
In a statement from Athletics Canada on Wednesday (4 February), they said: "This is an unfortunate situation and Athletics Canada hopes to see Alysha Newman back as part of our National Team Program when she is eligible."
Newman is entitled to appeal the suspension.
The OnlyFans model isn't alone though, as Indian high jumper Pooja Aarmaram was given a suspension for 'evading, refusing or failing to submit to sample collection'.
Newman went viral in 2024 when she pretended to be injured after the impressive 4.85-metre vault, before breaking into a twerk.
The stunt drove her subscribers on the 18+ site through the roof, as she first joined the subscription-based platform before the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Speaking to LADbible at the time, she admitted: "People ask me [how many new subscribers I've got] and I wish I could share it,
"It's not that I can't share it, it's just that it keeps on going up. So every time I talk to someone and I re-log on there's another 5,000 people. I can't give an official number it's definitely times by that."
"The last time I checked it was up by 30,000. So It just keeps on growing every day. I would hate to say something that's not true," she said.
It was estimated that the pole vaulter made over $230,000 (£178,000) from these new subscribers alone, as she charges $7.79 per subscription to her OnlyFans.
Admitting that she was looking forward to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Newman said she aims to 'upgrade the colour of her medal'.
"I want to get a promotion on the podium," she stated.
Newman also stood up for herself and other Olympians who have ventured into OnlyFans, explaining: "People want you to represent in this one box but when we stick in that one box we can't make more movement. So I think a lot of athletes realise how individual the sports are and how hard it is to get to this level."
"Some of us want to be different," Newman admitted.
Topics: Drugs, Olympics, OnlyFans, Sport, World News
Joshua Nair