July 23, 2015 (Milton, ON) - Colombian cyclist Maria Luisa Calle Williams has tested positive for a banned substance at the 2015 Pan American Games reports the Colombian daily, HSB Noticias, and Cicloweb, an Italian website. Calle Williams, 46, apparently failed a doping test for growth hormones after the Women's Team Pursuit.
She was provisionally suspended as of July 22 and did not take part in the time trials (ITT) organized that day near the Cisco Pan Am Velodrome in Milton, Ont. where she was the defending woman's champion, and her absence raised eyebrows.
She will not take part in the road race on July 25. It is unclear at this time if Calle Williams will request the testing of a B sample.
Calle Williams won bronze in the women's Points Race at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, becoming the first Colombian to win an Olympic medal in cycling according to Wikipedia. She was later forced to return the medal after testing positive for the banned stimulant heptaminol, but contested the result to the Court of Arbitration in Sport (CAS) and won on the appeal.
At the 2011 Pan American Games' ITT in Guadalajara, Mexico, Calle won gold with a time of 28:04.82; she was 43 at the time. Evelyn Garcia (El Salvador) finished second in that race and Laura Brown (CAN) finished third.
