Sharapova fails drugs test

[Bishop Briggs]

ImageUploadedByPie & Bovril1457433691.917107.jpg

 

Spot on! Sharapova's excuse is not credible. The only surprise is that the PED was not banned sooner. A less well known athlete would get four years but tennis makes up its own rules.

 

Interesting that Nike have suspended their contract with Sharapova immediately whereas they clung on as long as possible to Armstrong and still pay Gatlin.

 

It looks like an incredibly well choreographed announcement to me. There will have been talks already and Sharapova knows what punishment she's going to get. "Sorry, Maria. We need folk to forget about the whole match fixing thing. You were due to retire anyway."

 

Maria is 28 and several years younger than the Williams sisters and Federer. As tennis's poster girl, she should have a few lucrative years left to earn many more millions in prizes, sponsorship and endorsements. 

Edited March 8, 2016 by Bishop Briggs

[Diamonds are Forever]

I think she's made a major mistake by admitting taking it for 10 years, even though it wasn't banned during that time. Once everyone realises that she wasn't taking it for medical reasons and knew it was a PED it means her whole career can be basically discarded. She's risked her whole 'legacy' just for another couple of years at the top, and it wont work, even if she does get the pathetic ban which I fully expect.

[Bishop Briggs]

I think she's made a major mistake by admitting taking it for 10 years, even though it wasn't banned during that time. Once everyone realises that she wasn't taking it for medical reasons and knew it was a PED it means her whole career can be basically discarded. She's risked her whole 'legacy' just for another couple of years at the top, and it wont work, even if she does get the pathetic ban which I fully expect.

 

True but the big question is who else has been taking this drug. Her former coach Nick Bolletieri accepts her pathetic excuses - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/35752114.

 

And there's the typical pro-doping BS from the Russians- "I think this is just a load of nonsense," Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpishchev told the TASS news agency. "I think Sharapova will play at the Olympics. The sportsmen take what they are given by the physiotherapists and by the doctors. However, we will need to see how this will develop."

[peasy23]

Fact is WADA put this on their "watch" list last year, so she had plenty of notice that this was in the wind. To then not notice that it was banned, either by herself or any of her entourage, is incredibly stupid.

[Uncle Psychosis]

I think she's made a major mistake by admitting taking it for 10 years, even though it wasn't banned during that time. Once everyone realises that she wasn't taking it for medical reasons and knew it was a PED it means her whole career can be basically discarded. She's risked her whole 'legacy' just for another couple of years at the top, and it wont work, even if she does get the pathetic ban which I fully expect.

 

Problem with that view is, like you say, that it wasn't illegal for those 10 years. Athletes take all sorts of perfectly legal supplements and substances that enhance their performance or recovery: protein supplements, oxygen tents, etc. Every professional athlete in the world uses "performance enhancing" drugs---its just that we hope they are sticking to the legal ones. If this stuff was allowed before Jan 2016 then the fact that she used it before then can not be used against her.

 

That said, she should still have the book thrown at her, purely for her use of it this year. On first glance it seems fairly certain that she has no medical need of it and has been taking it after it was on the banned list. You don't need the previous ten years to count in order to ban her for a long time.

[Diamonds are Forever]

Problem with that view is, like you say, that it wasn't illegal for those 10 years. Athletes take all sorts of perfectly legal supplements and substances that enhance their performance or recovery: protein supplements, oxygen tents, etc. Every professional athlete in the world uses "performance enhancing" drugs---its just that we hope they are sticking to the legal ones. If this stuff was allowed before Jan 2016 then the fact that she used it before then can not be used against her.

That said, she should still have the book thrown at her, purely for her use of it this year. On first glance it seems fairly certain that she has no medical need of it and has been taking it after it was on the banned list. You don't need the previous ten years to count in order to ban her for a long time.

Completely accept this, what is/isn't a performance enhancing drug is not black or white. Well it is in the sense there is a banned list, but how they decide what is or isn't performance enhancing is up for debate so really you go by the banned list and anything not on that list is fair game. In that sense up until January she did nothing wrong. However it seems pretty obvious that she had been taking this for a decade knowing full well it was a PED but got it off a 'family doctor' claiming it was needed for medicinal purposes. Technically she wasn't breaking any rules, but she was clearly gaining an unfair advantage over her competitors. I think once that comes to light her career will be viewed very differently.

In any event, to have the stupidity or arrogance to continue taking it once it was banned is unbelievable and she should have the book thrown at her for that.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

If that's what drugs do, then bring on the drugs.

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She was always able to provide a sample.

 

[DiegoDiego]

However it seems pretty obvious that she had been taking this for a decade knowing full well it was a PED but got it off a 'family doctor' claiming it was needed for medicinal purposes. Technically she wasn't breaking any rules, but she was clearly gaining an unfair advantage over her competitors.

 

It wasn't "unfair" as it was within the rules and it probably wasn't even an advantage as most likely her competitors would have been on it (or similar) anyway.

[Diamonds are Forever]

It wasn't "unfair" as it was within the rules and it probably wasn't even an advantage as most likely her competitors would have been on it (or similar) anyway.

In that case why did she say she needed it for medical reasons? She obviously felt it was dodgy or she would have just been up front about it.

[MarkoRaj]

It wasn't allowed as a performance enhancer but it was for medical reasons. Now its not allowed at all So if she was using it legitimately it's a stupid mistake, but if she was using it for performance then she's been doping for 10 years

[peasy23]

https://jakegshelley.wordpress.com/

Good blog article on the drug in question.

[Bishop Briggs]

Richard Pound - 

 

"You are taking something on a list. I am sorry, that is a big mistake - of course she should have known,"

 

"She is taking something that is not generally permitted in her country of residence [uSA] for medical purposes, so she says, so there must be a doctor following this. Anytime there is a change to the list, notice is given on 30 September prior to the change. You have October, November, December to get off what you are doing. All the tennis players were given notification of it and she has a medical team somewhere. That is reckless beyond description."

 

"A drug like this over a long period of time is contraindicated. It means you would not take it over a long period of time. That is why there was an urge to put the drug on the list. A lot of people were taking it for performance enhancing. Most of the drugs of choice for dopers were built for therapeutic reasons - like EPO and others. That was supposed to regenerate blood if you had cancer treatment or surgical intervention if you needed to increase blood supply. Someone has said: 'Hmm, more oxygen in the blood? Hmm, very interesting. Let's see if we can use it for that purpose."

"There is a side effect to every drug, somebody must be monitoring this."

[HibeeJibee]

Problem with that view is, like you say, that it wasn't illegal for those 10 years. Athletes take all sorts of perfectly legal supplements and substances that enhance their performance or recovery: protein supplements, oxygen tents, etc. Every professional athlete in the world uses "performance enhancing" drugs---its just that we hope they are sticking to the legal ones. If this stuff was allowed before Jan 2016 then the fact that she used it before then can not be used against her.

 

It wasn't allowed as a performance enhancer but it was for medical reasons. Now its not allowed at all So if she was using it legitimately it's a stupid mistake, but if she was using it for performance then she's been doping for 10 years

 

Had they only been testing for it since a few weeks ago or had they been testing (and presumably she failing) for 10yrs with her always getting signed-off?

[peasy23]

Had they only been testing for it since a few weeks ago or had they been testing (and presumably she failing) for 10yrs with her always getting signed-off?

It wasn't banned until January 1st so taking it up til then was completely legal. There have been several reported failed tests since with two Russian speed skaters also in the news yesterday.

[Nakamura]

Meldonium is the drug she claims she has been prescribed by the family doctor for 10 years. She has lived in the USA all that time, where Meldonium is not approved for use by the FDA. Go figure.

 

 

She can have a family doctor somewhere on this side.

 

There seems to be a lot of EU medicine and new treatment procedures that aren't approved in the USA. A few years ago we had probably some dozen NBA stars go to Germany to get knee procedures because they weren't approved in the US (Kobe, Pau Gasol, Brandon Roy, don't remember others).

Edited March 9, 2016 by Nakamura

[sparky88]

As Dick Pound said, Sharapova is effectively running a business worth £30m. There won't be many CEOs of £30m businesses who won't hire lawyers (in Sharapovas case doctors) to see how major rule changes impact their business. In other words, she's a complete idiot.

[Tamdunk]

As Dick Pound said, Sharapova is effectively running a business worth £30m. There won't be many CEOs of £30m businesses who won't hire lawyers (in Sharapovas case doctors) to see how major rule changes impact their business. In other words, she's a complete idiot.

Dick Pound. Lol

[DiegoDiego]

In that case why did she say she needed it for medical reasons? She obviously felt it was dodgy or she would have just been up front about it.

 

Because there are plenty of people who think that playing within the letter of the law is unfair if it involves taking "chemical" supplements beneficial to performance, especially if they come from somewhere like Latvia. It's irrelevant to them that every top sportsperson does the same. Her sponsors care about these people and therefore Sharapova has to as well.

 

It could not possibly be unfair because the same advantage was available to every other competitor. Until Jan 1st 2016 she did nothing wrong by taking mildronate. Every tennis player could have done the same thing and many of them probably did, there are six other athletes who have tested positive for mildronate this year.

If you want to talk about unfair advantages then read Agassi's autobiography or ask Serena Williams about her panic room.

[THE KING]

I think she's made a major mistake by admitting taking it for 10 years, even though it wasn't banned during that time. Once everyone realises that she wasn't taking it for medical reasons and knew it was a PED it means her whole career can be basically discarded. She's risked her whole 'legacy' just for another couple of years at the top, and it wont work, even if she does get the pathetic ban which I fully expect.

If she's been taking it for 10 years then she'll have 10 years of paperwork declaring it on every drugs test she's ever taken ...unless she forgot for the last 10 years.

[Bishop Briggs]

She can have a family doping doctor somewhere on this side.

 

There seems to be a lot of EU medicine and new treatment procedures that aren't approved in the USA. A few years ago we had probably some dozen NBA stars go to Germany to get knee procedures because they weren't approved in the US (Kobe, Pau Gasol, Brandon Roy, don't remember others).

 

FTFY.

 

 

Remember Operation Puerto and Dr Fuentes - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2269161/Operation-Fuentes-Football-tennis-set-drug-trial-let-off.html/

 

"Football and tennis appear likely to escape when a notorious doping case comes to a Madrid court on Monday.

 

"The Spanish authorities instead say that Operation Puerto - a seven-year police investigation into Dr Eufemanio Fuentes - will implicate only the already drug-rattling sport of cycling. 

 

"The trial will take no account of Fuentes’s open admission of administering performance-enhancing drugs to teams in the first and second divisions of Spanish football as well as tennis and handball players. It will also ignore claims that he oversaw doping during the 2006 World Cup in Germany."

 

The Mail is a good campaigner against dopers and corruption in sport. Its journalists question rigorously the ridiculous excuses and PR nonsense that other hacks accept.

 

Tennis has been in denial about doping for decades. Professionals sportsmen and women don't use family doctors to treat their conditions. They use the top specialists, the best that money can buy. 

Edited March 9, 2016 by Bishop Briggs