Simona Halep (31, Romania), who won the women’s singles title twice in major tennis tournaments, faced the biggest crisis in her career as a four-year ban for doping violations.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) announced on the 13th that an independent tribunal commissioned by the non-profit organization Sports Resolutions found Halep’s doping suspicions to be true and issued a four-year suspension.
Halep was provisionally suspended from competition after a doping test at last year’s US Open found traces of her taking the banned substance roxadustat.
Then, in May of this year, she analyzed his Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) and further suspicions were raised that she had administered banned substances.카지노사이트
After hearing the opinions of doping experts presented as witnesses by Halep and ITIA on June 28-29 in London, England, the Independent Tribunal ruled that both allegations against Halep were recognized as true.
The independent tribunal said it “accepts Halep’s claim that she took a drug-contaminated supplement, but that it would not have affected roxadustat levels.” It also unanimously concluded that the evidence found at the ABP demonstrates the possibility of doping. He explained the reason for the ruling, saying, “There is no reason to doubt this.”
Halep admitted to doping violation
Halep announced that she would appeal this ruling to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Halep said: “I have taken the rules that govern tennis very seriously and have never knowingly or knowingly used a banned substance. I will not accept the decision to ban me for four years.”
He continued, “We later confirmed that the supplements added during the process of adjusting nutritional supplements ahead of the 2022 North American hard court season were contaminated with roxadustat,” and added, “We will pursue all measures to hold the company in question legally responsible.” said.
Halep also emphasized, “Over the course of nearly 20 years, competing in hundreds of competitions and winning two major titles, I underwent 200 blood and urine tests to check for banned substances, and they all came back clean.”
Halep is a top-level star player who has won a total of 24 tour competitions.
He won the singles title twice in major tournaments, at the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019.
Halep winning the 2018 French Open
Since 2017, she has ranked first in the year-end Women’s Professional Tennis (WTA) singles rankings for two consecutive years.
However, this doping violation ruling brought her athlete’s life into the greatest crisis.
Now that she is well into her 30s, it seems likely that unless she gets a ‘not guilty verdict’ from CAS soon she will be effectively pushed into her retirement.
Halep said her string of injuries led her to consider her retirement early last year.
This is the first time that a high-level athlete like Halep has been caught for a doping violation since Maria Sharapova (her retirement in Russia) in 2016.
Sharapova, who was suspended for two years at the time, appealed to the CAS, and her court lowered her punishment to 15 months, saying it was difficult to consider her intentional doping.
Roxadustat is a drug prescribed to patients with anemia or kidney problems, and its function is to increase red blood cell production.
Athletes in sports that require cardiorespiratory endurance, such as road cycling and long-distance running, are often caught taking this drug.