Carina Horn slapped with potentially career-ending six-year ban after second positive dope test

South Africa women's 100m record holder Carina Horn has been slapped with a six-year drugs ban after testing positive for the steroid clenbuterol.

The ban was upheld by World Athletics' Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), after the Basque Public Authorities has initially imposed it as well as disqualifying the Horn's results from a race she ran at the VI Gran Premio Ordizia - Jose Antonio Pena International Meeting on June 18 last year. Horn, who has around 20 days to appeal the decision at the Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS), had appealed the ban - which was handed out on March 13 - but the Basque authorities have dismissed it.

The six-year ban is because this was a second offence for Horn, who became the first and only South African woman to dip under the 11-second mark with a time of 10.98sec. While it was unclear from the correspondence about the ban why she had been given a six-year ban, she would have been given an eigh-year suspension had she tested positive in South Africa for being a repeat offender, as per the South African Institute of Drug Free Sport's protocols.

Horn previously tested positive for were Ibutamoren and LGD-4033, which – according to research – mimic the growth hormone stimulating action of the endogenous hormone ghrelin and treat the muscle wasting and weakness associated with aging, respectively. Instead of being suspended for the mandatory four years for those drugs, she only got a two-year sentence after claiming her scientists had proven that her pre and post workout supplements had been contaminated.

A big part for Horn contesting the Basque Public Authorities' ruling was whether their protocols were in line with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) protocols, given that they are not