Olympian who performed X-rated gesture after winning medal finds new job after ban from sport
Olympic medalist Alysha Newman has announced she will apply for a new job after being banned from competing in pole vault.
The Canadian athlete, 31, won a bronze medal at Paris 2024 and set a new national record by throwing 4.85 metres in the final.
But she was suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) in February of this year after three anti-doping whereabouts failures.
On April 29, she was handed a 20-month suspension, which has been backdated to December 3, 2025.
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In their written reasons, the AIU stated that Newman's three whereabouts failures related to a filing failure in February 2025, a missed test and filing failure in August 2025, and another filing failure also in August 2025.
Newman did not dispute the violation but told the commission that the whereabouts failures had occurred 'in the context of a period of significant personal and professional change', which she described as 'increasingly disorganised and overwhelming'.
She said she missed the first test because she could not find her car key, and missed the third because she had informed track and field investigators that she had to leave to film a TV gameshow.
The AIU found there was 'no evidence of a pattern of last-minute changes or any conduct suggesting that the Athlete was seeking to evade Testing'.
It was also noted that the Canadian had already chosen to end her athletics career.
During the Paris 2024 Olympics, Newman went viral after performing a twerking celebration after clearing the 4.85-metre bar for her personal best.
Before the Olympics, the 31-year-old had set up an OnlyFans account, telling German outlet BILD that she used it to 'post a lot of my training sessions, talk about nutrition and lots of tips and tricks'.
The account is still active as of May 2026 and has amassed over 200,000 'likes' on the platform.
Since stepping away from athletics, Newman has worked as a model and has featured on the front cover of various magazines.
She has now announced that Victoria's Secret have invited her to attend an 'in-person casting' ahead of their yearly fashion show, which took place in October last year.
"See you soon Victoria's Secret!" she wrote on Instagram. "What is life."
Newman posted a clip of her audition video to her TikTok channel, where she replied to a fan that she was planning to compete at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles once her ban has expired.
Because the ban has been backdated, she will be eligible to return in August 2027 - under a year before the Olympics gets underway.
Topics: Olympics
Ryan Smart