Two-time grand slam champion Simona Halep has been given a four-year ban for anti-doping rule violations, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA)\u00a0announced on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Halep, who has previously denied wrongdoing, responded to the announcement by saying she will appeal and has \u201cnever knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance.\u201d <\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI am continuing to train and do everything in my power to clear my name of these false allegations and return to the court.\u201d <\/p>\n
The former world No. 1, who won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, was charged with two separate breaches of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme. <\/p>\n
The first, the ITIA said, related to Halep testing positive for banned substance roxadustat \u2013 which is listed on the 2022 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List \u2013 at the US Open last year. <\/p>\n
According to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), roxadustat is a class of drug called HIF-stabilizing agents and can increase an athlete\u2019s red blood cell count and increase endurance performance. <\/p>\n
The second charge was for irregularities in Halep\u2019s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), which is designed to monitor an athlete\u2019s selected biological variables over time. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe tribunal accepted Halep\u2019s argument that they had taken a contaminated supplement, but determined the volume the player ingested could not have resulted in the concentration of roxadustat found in the positive sample,\u201d the ITIA said in a press release. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe ABP charge was also upheld, with the tribunal stating that they had no reason to doubt the unanimous \u2018strong opinion\u2019 reached by each of the three independent Athlete Passport Management Unit (APMU) experts that \u2018likely doping\u2019 was the explanation for the irregularities in Halep\u2019s profile.\u201d <\/p>\n
The ITIA said that the 31-year-old\u2019s suspension is backdated and will run from October 7, 2022, until October 6, 2026, and it says the case is subject to appeal. <\/p>\n
Halep, whose last appearance was at last year\u2019s US Open, has been suspended since October 2022. <\/p>\n
\u201cToday, a\u00a0tribunal under the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme announced a tentative decision in my case,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cThe last year has been the hardest match of my life, and unfortunately my fight continues.\u201d <\/p>\n
Halep added that she had adjusted her nutritional supplements ahead of the hard-court season in 2022. She said that none of the listed ingredients included any prohibited substances, but accepted that one of them was contaminated with roxadustat. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was tested almost weekly after my initial positive test through early 2023, all of which came back negative.\u201d <\/p>\n
Halep added she was \u201ceternally grateful\u201d for the support from her friends, family and fans and that she will \u201cappeal this decision to The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and pursue all legal remedies against the supplement company in question.\u201d <\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI\u2019m shocked because I\u2019ve been with her through the whole process. And the decision is completely, for me, impossible to understand \u2026 I was at the hearing with her throughout and I sat there and I listened to everything for two days. <\/p>\n
\u201cListening to what I listened to and to the evidence and everything, I don\u2019t understand how it is possible to condemn her at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, she\u2019s going to go to the CAS \u2026 I hope that those people will see it fairly and that she will be released.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Two-time grand slam champion Simona Halep has been given a four-year ban for anti-doping rule violations, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA)\u00a0announced on Tuesday. Halep, who has previously denied wrongdoing, responded to the announcement by saying she will appeal and has \u201cnever knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance.\u201d She added: \u201cI am continuing to <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8356,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}