Penny Oleksiak and Swimming Canada announced today that she has withdrawn from the 2025 World Championships in Singapore due to a Whereabouts Case.
Oleksiak made a statement on Instagram confirming her withdrawal where she stated that her Whereabouts case is “still in the preliminary stages.” She went on to say “this Whereabouts case does not involve any banned substance; it’s about whether I updated my information correctly.” At the end of her post she says “I am and always have been a clean athlete.”
Swimming Canada made similar assertions in their post on X, stating “We support her decision and believe she is a clean athlete who made an administrative mistake.”
Statement from Swimming Canada regarding Penny Oleksiak.
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Déclaration de Natation Canada concernant Penny Oleksiak pic.twitter.com/hj98l8GB3e
— Swimming Canada / Natation Canada (@SwimmingCanada) July 4, 2025
A Whereabouts Case is an Anti-Doping rule violation that can affect athlete eligibility even if they have never taken a banned substance. The World Anti-Doping Code defines a Whereabouts failure as any combination of three missed tests or filing failures in a 12-month period.
Athletes who are members of the “Registered Testing Pool” which is the highest tier of athlete testing, are required to report an accurate and up-to-date filing of their whereabouts at all times. This is so they can be drug tested at any time and any place with no advance notice.
According to World Aquatics, if an athlete in the testing pool submits “late, inaccurate or incomplete whereabouts that lead to [them] being unavailable for testing, [they] may receive a Filing Failure.”
Registered Testing Pool athletes are also subject to Missed Tests, which is when they are not available for a drug test during a 60-minute time slot. Any combination of three Filing Failures or Missed Tests within 12-months could result in a two-year ban.
Oleksiak moved her training base to Los Angeles in the fall of 2023, which is presumably where her violations have occurred. She has not received a suspension yet, but if she competed at the World Championships, and then receives a suspension, it could potentially affect her results and the results of any relay she competed on.
She was one of 14 women who earned a spot on Canada’s World’s team after she took home first place finishes in the 50 and 100 freestyle events at Canadian Trials last month. Her withdrawal will have significant implications for Canada’s relay teams.
To anyone saying ‘Whereabouts violations are no big deal,” does anyone else remember when two Greek track sprinters staged a motorcycle crash to avoid drug testing? https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/sports/olympics-drug-testing-its-two-track-stars-face-possible-disqualification-greece.html
While the details never fully emerged, the bizarre scenario reflects the fact hat yes, a person who is doping has massive incentives to avoid a test at the wrong time.
I don’t think that’s what’s going on here; I believe that Oleksiak is clean. But the whereabouts system is absolutely necessary, and there is a reason that three violations (an incredibly poor record) leads to a sanction.
She took the post down. I wonder if something new has developed on this?
Man Oleksiak has had such a weird career since winning Olympic gold in Rio.
Penny is a natural to swimming pool, as makes her go underground, flippantly though…..
I’d argue this is a bigger deal than most are suggesting. Penny seemed motivated again after short course worlds. She posted this on her Instagram: “So happy to finally feel back on regular program. This is just the beginning and I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the new quad.”
However, her Instagram has long held a familiar tendency among sporting women who reach early fame. It becomes less about the sport and more about nightlife, food, modeling and fashion. I could rattle off one name after another.
Keely Hodgkinson the British 800 runner and Paris gold medalist is the latest example. I’m not surprised at all she has not raced since the Olympics, given the photo… Read more »
…which one never sees with successful male athletes particularly in sports that don’t really pay well in of themselves
What Would Ryan Lochte Do????
Maybe some athletes want to post more about non-swimming stuff? Maybe they don’t want a swim-dominated feed? Maybe swimming is just one part of their life? Maybe social media is where they find the freedom to show the other side to their life?
Hodgkinson has been injured.
Hamstrings are quite important when running.
Harsh crowd. I’ve seen comment sections of articles about athletes with actual doping violations with less schadenfreude than this.
It’s interesting how people perceive different comment sections.
Folks with Oleksiak rooting interests think it’s “harsh.” Folks without Oleksiak rooting interests think she’s “getting off easy.”
True. But you look at Canadian swimming through rose coloured glasses.
Yeah but somehow this site looks at everything through pro-china eyes. I mean at some point just be consistent.
lolwut?
I hate to be that guy since it’s always so painful when an athlete has a violation, but three whereabouts failures doesn’t just mean not being where you said you would be three times; it means not being where you said you would be three times *on days when the testers come*. To my understanding, most athletes, unless there’s a particular reason for suspicion, aren’t tested all that many times out of competition in a given year. Maybe a dozen or so? Often less, I think.
And it’s not like athletes aren’t told when they have a whereabouts violation. The athlete would spend the rest of the year knowing they have a violation on their record. If you get two,… Read more »
I sort of wish that when athletes got the three Whereabouts strikes, the sanction would have to consider how many times they were successfully tested.
If someone misses three tests but does test clean 26 other times in the same 12 month period, that should mitigate the severity of the punishment.
Doping orgs are allowed to target test basically as they want, as I understand it. So if you miss one test and they think you might be dodging, they can send a tester to your door every day for the rest of the week if they want. Or so that’s how it has been explained to me.
Or how difficult it is for testers to enter the country, or if the location is atop Inaccessible Mountain 14 hours from the airport
It’s an interesting idea, and I could be convinced. You said in another comment that you think the Whereabouts system is particularly onerous for (even clean) athletes to comply with.
My read is that it’s is really good at making it hard for dopers. For a clean athlete, all you have to do is be where you say you will be for one hour a day. A dirty athlete has to do that and also control their doping schedule so that everything leaves their system by the next testing window. This probably limits how much they can take, so they’ll probably want to push it a little bit, knowing that in the rare chance a tester shows up they can… Read more »
Filing failures can also be filing a quarter late or filing with information missing, it doesn’t necessarily mean they haven’t been able to locate her for testing.
Actually, no. Filing late does not cause a failure. Filing late where it led to the athlete being unavailable for testing is what causes the failure. That language is only in there so that athletes can’t change it at the last minute to throw off testers for where they’ll be and then claim that they had been available.
As @Andy Hardt says, this could be 30 times or 60 times, who knows, and just 3 where testers came to test. Any clean swimmer just files and that’s it. If you end up traveling for some reason, even if you update like a week before, it is never a problem.
And the problem with @Braden Keith Keith’s suggestion… Read more »
Not surprised whatsoever. It has become quite obvious in the last couple of years that she is not taking swimming seriously and doing only what is required to continue to receive funding/sponsorships.
She is no longer competitive as an individual swimmer internationally (did not individually qualify at 2024 Olympics and did not make it out of prelims at 2024 Short Course World’s) and due to the lack of depth in Canadian women’s sprints for freestyle, makes the team because there is no one else ready yet.
Every time I hear her interviewed, I am left with the impression that she no longer cares. There is no passion, no drive. Yes, she won the 50m and 100m at Canadian Trials. Big… Read more »
She is not what she once was, we can all agree on that. Best of luck to her to return somewhere close. She did something in the modern media/social media age as a teenager when no other Canadian had come close for decades, became the lightning rod for the national team whether she wanted or not, and had some challenges adjusting. She’d had injuries, and has not been a seasonal swimmer, but “big meet” as in Olympics swimmer. She should have been on the Medley Relay and no doubt with her experience and prelims performance as a marker, would have had the team right there for a medal on the finish. Narrative may have changed on her performances then. … Read more »
I never thought I would see someone refer to Corey Perry in the swimswam comments but you hit the nail on the head with that comparison.