Alicia Dana, a three-time medalist in Paralympic cycling from Putney, has been barred from competing in the 2024 Paralympic trials next week after testing positive for a banned substance.

Dana maintains the positive test was the result of using a topical cream she was unaware contained clostebol, an anabolic steroid. Now, Dana is taking responsibility for not checking the ingredients in the medication — and hopes telling her story can help remind athletes to be vigilant about what they put in their bodies.

“It was an oversight on my part,” Dana said. “If I had been buying something that I was going to take orally. I think little red flags would have gone off … To be honest, it didn’t even occur to me that a topical thing would be something I needed to check.”

Dana said she was in Maniago, Italy, for the Para-Cycling Road World Cup in May when she bought an ointment to prevent infection on an open pressure sore, a common injury among paraplegic individuals. A pharmacist directed her to Trofodermin, a cream available over the counter in Italy.

A few days after Dana returned to Putney, she received notice that her urine test had come back positive for an anabolic steroid. She dug the Trofodermin tube out of her trash can and found clostebol among its ingredients.

“You go in there, and you don't see all those familiar brands that you see in a pharmacy in the States,” Dana said. “Of course, it’s all in Italian, so it’s kind of hard to know what’s what.”

Italian regulators require the medicine’s packaging to display a warning label, the word “doping” with the red backslash symbol. But Dana said she immediately threw out the box without seeing the cautionary message, and the tube didn’t have the warning.

A representative from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency confirmed that Dana tested positive for a banned substance on May 23 and was provisionally suspended, effective June 26.

"All athletes are afforded due process, including being presumed innocent unless and until they are found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation through the established legal process," the representative wrote in a statement. Dana is not the first athlete to claim inadvertent use of clostebol: In 2016, Norwegian Olympic cross-country skier Therese Johaug was suspended after her team doctor recommended she use Trofodermin to treat a severe sunburn on her lips. In 2023, Bahamian Olympian swimmer Joanna Evans was suspended after buying Trofodermin in Naples to treat open wounds. And in 2020, Irish Olympic hopeful Robert Powell, also a swimmer, was banned from competition for one year after applying Trofodermin in error.

Scientists at Rome’s anti-doping laboratory have found even small amounts of clostebol applied topically can cause the substance to show up in urine samples.

A three-time Paralympian, Dana won a silver medal at the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and two bronze medals in Tokyo in 2020. She won world cup titles in 2015 and 2017 and is a three-time champion in the Boston Marathon’s women’s handcycling division.

As a teenager, Dana was a nationally competitive athlete in cycling and cross-country skiing. At age 17, while attending the Putney School, she fell 40 feet from a tree she had climbed and was instantly paralyzed from the waist down. Years later, she tried her first handcycle and began racing competitively.

“It was very crushing. I mean, it would have been for anybody, but I think because I was an athlete, it was particularly difficult for me,” Dana said of her accident. “It was always important for me to find a way to stay active.”

Dana, now 55, said she viewed her chances of qualifying for the Paris Paralympics in August as slim and, prior to the positive test, was planning on retiring this year. Now, she said she’s likely to delay her retirement to leave open the possibility of competing when her suspension concludes.

Her coach Jakub Novak, a former professional road cyclist based in Australia, is supporting her. Novak said he has zero doubt that Dana unintentionally ingested clostebol, and he stressed the importance of athletes checking if medications are on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of prohibited substances.

“We cannot do anything now, just try to reduce the sentence … and then come back to it, if she can,” he said. “And maybe she can also raise awareness so it will not happen to other athletes.”

A lawyer will help Dana plead her case for a shortened period of suspension at an upcoming hearing. But as of now, the para-cycling qualifying race on July 7 is off the table.

“I've had an incredible career, which I'm extremely grateful for,” Dana said. “It's ironic and sad that it should culminate like this, but you know, it is what it is.”