<p>LAUSANNE, Switzerland — World champion sprinter Salwa Eid Naser will have a two-day appeal hearing next month that could lead to a ban from the Tokyo Olympics for breaking anti-doping rules.</p>
<p>The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Tuesday it will hear the case involving the 400-meter runner over two days on April 22-23.</p>
<p>The World Anti-Doping Agency and World Athletics both filed appeals at CAS to challenge an independent tribunal ruling last year that <a href="https://apnews.com/article/bahrain-2020-tokyo-olympics-doping-olympic-games-salwa-eid-naser-977d732b163894bf1c0c7ae679e0109a">cleared Naser on a technicality</a> for doping tests she missed.</p>
<p>A verdict could be announced urgently with the Diamond League track series set to start in May. The first women’s 400 race is on May 23 in Rabat, Morocco.</p>
<p>The women’s 400 event at the Tokyo Olympics is scheduled from Aug. 3-6.</p>
<p>Naser ran the fastest women’s 400 since 1985 to win the world title 18 months ago in Doha, Qatar, while she was under investigation.</p>
<p>The 22-year-old Bahraini was allowed to keep the title despite being charged by the Athletics Integrity Unit with “whereabouts” failures — missed tests and incorrect updates on a database detailing where athletes can be found each day by sample collection officials.</p>
<p>Athletes can be banned for two years if they have three failures within one year.</p>
<p>Naser denied wrongdoing last year when the investigation was revealed and said missed tests could happen to any athlete.</p>
<p>Naser was found by a tribunal in London to have three whereabouts failures from March 2019-January 2020, but they technically counted as spanning more than one year according to anti-doping rules.</p>
<p>The ruling also swung on a fourth possible violation for a sample that could not be taken in April 2019 when officials went to her apartment building in Riffa, Bahrain.</p>
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