British Para-cyclist Daphne Schrager has been banned from all sport for two years after testing positive for the banned muscle-building substance Ligandrol.

The National Anti-Doping Panel (NADP) — the independent body that adjudicates doping cases in British sport — imposed the sanction, which was publicly reported on 24 July 2026. The ban is backdated to 2 June 2025, when Schrager was first provisionally suspended, and runs until 1 June 2027. It applies across all sports governed by the World Anti-Doping Code.

Schrager, who has cerebral palsy and races in the C2 classification (a category for cyclists with moderate physical impairments), won ParalympicsGB's first medal of the Paris 2024 Games with silver in the women's C1-3 3,000m individual pursuit on the track. She is also a former world champion and a double world record holder, according to her own social media profile.

The positive test came from an out-of-competition sample collected in 2024. It revealed a trace amount of Ligandrol — 0.0006 nanograms per millilitre. Ligandrol, also known as VK5211, is a selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM), a class of drugs that build muscle and bone mass without the broad side effects of traditional anabolic steroids.

The tribunal, chaired by Mark Hovell, found that Schrager had not intentionally used a banned substance. However, it also ruled that she had not proved the positive result was caused by inadvertent environmental contamination — the defence she mounted during the hearing.

Schrager argued the contamination could have occurred at a gym where she received a massage, or at a shared home address. She also paid privately for hair and nail analysis to support her case. Neither line of argument convinced the panel, though the full written decision was published as a redacted PDF on the Sport Resolutions website in April 2025.

She has stated that the trace detected would have given her no performance advantage. None of her competitive results have been disqualified as a result of the positive test, meaning her Paralympic silver and her two gold medals from the Para-cycling Road World Cup in May 2025 — won just weeks before her suspension — stand.

The ban has come at significant personal cost. Schrager said she lost her team contract as a direct result of the suspension. Her C2 category is not included in the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, so the ban does not separately affect her participation there.

One door remains open: because the ban expires on 1 June 2027, Schrager would be eligible to compete at the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles, should she return to the sport.

For Schrager, the case sits in an uncomfortable middle ground that anti-doping rules create more often than fans might assume — a tribunal convinced there was no intent to cheat, yet unable to accept the explanation offered for how a banned substance entered her body. The strict-liability principle at the heart of the World Anti-Doping Code means athletes bear the burden of proving how a substance got into their system. Schrager could not clear that bar.

Sources: BBC Sport; UK Anti-Doping; Sport Resolutions.