Sharapova 'reckless beyond description'

Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test was “reckless beyond description”, according to former World Anti-Doping Agency president Dick Pound.

Sharapova, 28, revealed on Monday that she tested positive for the banned substance meldonium in January.

A number of sponsors have already distanced themselves from the Russian five-time Grand Slam winner.

“Running a $30m business depends on you staying eligible to play tennis,” Pound told BBC Sport.

‘There must have been a doctor following this’

Meldonium, which Sharapova said she has taken since 2006 for health reasons, became a banned substance on 1 January.

It is on the banned list now because Wada started seeing it in lots of samples and found it does have performance-enhancing properties.

“You are taking something on a list. I am sorry, that is a big mistake – of course she should have known,” said Pound, who was head of Wada from 1999 to 2007.

“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.”

‘There is a side effect to every drug’

The ability to increase oxygen movement to muscles has seen meldonium used as a supplement for athletes, as it could have a positive affect on stamina and endurance.

Pound said: “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.”

‘Wada can ask for an increased ban’

The International Tennis Federation said Sharapova will be provisionally suspended from 12 March. She faces up to a four-year ban.

“We have now increased the basic penalty for a first offence from two to four years,” added 73-year-old Pound.

“If there is absolutely zero fault on the part of the athlete, where you can get a reduction of half of that suspension period, you are looking at a couple of years.

“That is for the tennis association to propose. If Wada does not agree, it will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for an increase.”

‘Sharapova – a media darling’

Sharapova made her announcement at a hotel in Los Angeles on Monday and her admission has polarised opinions.

World number one Serena Williams, who had beaten Sharapova in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open on 26 January before she tested positive, has said the Russian has shown “a lot of courage” for accepting responsibility.

However, Jeanette Kwakye, 100m finalist for Great Britain at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, has criticised Sharapova and feels she may be given a light sentence.

“What we have in Maria Sharapova is a media darling. She knows how to work the world of media, she knows how to spin and put things in her favour by breaking her own news,” said Kwakye.

“For somebody like her, it may be a lenient slap on the wrist. There seems to be a different rule for her.”

Source link

Introducing The Next Generation

Introducing The Next Generation

Source link

Meldonium – how can it help an athlete?

Meldonium was barely on the radar until five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova revealed she recorded a positive drugs test for the substance.

The Russian, 28, has been taking the drug since 2006 for health issues.

But it was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) on 1 January and the former world number one has now been provisionally suspended from 12 March, meaning she could face a suspension of up to four years.

A lot of athletes take it – possibly for medical reasons – but where has it come from? Will we be hearing more about it? And can you buy it?

Watch how Sharapova revealed she failed test

What is meldonium?

Meldonium – also known as mildronate – is a drug designed to treat ischemia, a condition where there is a reduction in blood supply to body tissue. It is also said to have benefits for diabetes sufferers.

Dr Tom Bassindale, lecturer in forensic science at Sheffield Hallam University, said: “It has been developed and used in Latvia and was approved in the early 2000s to treat diabetes and various heart-related diseases through its ability to adjust the body’s use of energy, stimulating glucose metabolism and also helping to clear fatty build-up in the arteries.”

Why would an athlete benefit from it?

The ability to increase oxygen movement to muscles has seen meldonium used as a supplement for athletes, as it could have a positive effect on stamina and endurance.

Dr Bassindale said: “It’s advertised as giving a mental focus, removing external stress so you feel sharper. There is a slight central nervous system effect, like with stimulants such as caffeine, which gives you a sharper edge.

“But it will aid recovery quicker from a hard effort – whether that’s playing multiple games of tennis or a cyclist coming back the next day for another stage. There is also an endurance effect.”

Can I buy it legally?

In a word: yes. It is not licensed in the UK, so is therefore illegal to sell. But it is not illegal to import it from abroad for personal use.

Russian supplements website RUPharm told BBC Sport it is has sold 150 packets of the drug in the most recent 24 hours, compared with 850 total sales in the past 12 months.

“As a joke we now call mildronate the Sharaponate,” said a spokesperson for the website.

Most of their sales are to UK and USA customers and the majority are for sport, rather than medicinal, use.

But the UK government’s Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency says it urges people to not buy unlicensed drugs from abroad, as there is no guarantee that customers know if the product is safe.

Is it safe?

Assuming the product is what it says on the label, there are no tests that show any serious side effects.

A Latvian manufacturer of the product – OlainFarm – says it is possible that some using the drug will suffer “headaches” and “agitation”. It is also possible for there to be some skin irritation, though this is “very rare”.

RUPharma said: “We do not know of any negative side effects, unless of course one overdoses. But that applies to any product or medicine.”

Dr Bassindale added that he would expect it to have “gone through significant testing” in Latvia.

Is it used a lot?

Last year, as part of Wada’s monitoring of meldonium, a Cologne testing centre found that 182 of 8,320 random urine samples gave positive results for the drug – a rate of 2.2%.

“That’s huge,” says Dr Bassindale. “The overall positive tests for all other doping was about 2% from 280,000 tests.”

BBC Russian’s Pavel Fendenko said the drug is frequently sold over the counter in Russia and prescribed by cardiologists.

“In 2013, the Russian government put it on a list of essential drugs – on a par with things like insulin – which makes it subject to certain price caps,” he said.

Why is it now banned?

After Wada monitored use of meldonium, it decided the drug would be included on the banned list from 1 January.

Dr Bassindale said: “When deciding whether to ban a drug, Wada looks at three things. Will it enhance performance? Is it detrimental to the health of an athlete? Is it against the ‘spirit of sport’?

“To be banned, a drug must ‘fail’ two of these three tests. Presumably, in this case, they have decided the drug is against the ‘spirit of sport’.”

Will we see more failed tests?

If 2.2% of random samples showed levels of the drug, then it is being widely used. However, it is impossible to tell how many of those samples take it for legitimate medical reasons and would therefore be able to get a therapeutic usage exemption.

But Dr Bassindale says the high-profile nature of Sharapova’s positive test may reduce the number of athletes using meldonium.

“This might have persuaded people to be much more careful,” he said.

Source link

Next Generation Star Zverev Falls Under Spotlight

Next Generation Star Zverev Falls Under Spotlight

Source link

Emirates ATP Rankings 7 March 2016

Emirates ATP Rankings 7 March 2016

Source link

Looking Ahead To Indian Wells And Miami 2016

Looking Ahead To Indian Wells And Miami 2016

Source link

Cool, calculated & candid Sharapova?

Black blouse, pale face. That was Maria Sharapova as she announced her failed drugs test.

And the reaction to her carefully scripted words has been equally as polarised.

From the believers: Maria has made a mistake. She is a good person. We could all have done it.

From the other: doesn’t this all sound rather familiar?

Sharapova, a woman so focused on the small details that, according to her long-time agent Max Eisenbud, she will peel the label off bottles of water she drinks in nightclubs just in case someone takes a photo of her with a product she has not yet endorsed, has attacked this storm as she does a struggling opponent on court.

Announcements of failed tests are supposed to come from the sport’s governing body. That can leave time for rumours to swirl and opinions to harden. Consider everything Sharapova did in that Los Angeles hotel on Monday in that light.

The backdrop: beige curtain. Sober. Calm. The outfit: black shirt with long sleeves, long black trousers. An ensemble for mourning, an image of gravity and abstinence.

The legal position once she failed that test for meldonium is straightforward. Either she has deliberately taken it, knowing it is banned, which is cheating, or she has deliberately taken it and not known it is banned, which is negligence. According to anti-doping protocols, a suspension automatically follows either way.

There is no room in that legal process for emotion. Which is why an athlete looking for sympathy and leniency will introduce it as soon as they can.

The first six words Sharapova spoke appeared to be beautifully chosen. “I wanted to let you know…” Personal. Thoughtful. Not “I have been forced to…” or “You would have found out anyway”, but an act of choice, an almost moral decision to keep us informed.

“…that a few days ago I received a letter from the ITF that I have failed a drugs test.” The introduction of the idea that it is all new to her, that she has been taken by surprise; that this is something happening to her from the outside.

“For the past 10 years I have been given a drug called Mildronate by my family doctor…” Not Sharapova choosing to take it. Not a dodgy pharmacist or lab rat, but a family doctor.

“A few days ago, I found out it also has another name, which is meldonium, which I did not know.” Not that the drug was on the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) watch-list for the whole of 2015, or that it was announced in September that it would be banned, or that Sharapova received an email to that effect six months ago.

Instead, confusing old science. No reference to Wada’s announcement of its 2016 prohibited list, released on 16 September 2015, which prominently contains this sentence: “Meldonium (Mildronate) was added because of evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance.”

“It’s very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on the banned list, and I was legally taking this medicine.”

A solid reference to the legality of taking it, rather than the fact that meldonium has never been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the US, where Sharapova has lived for the past 21 years, or that the use of a drug to treat chronic heart failure seems curious in an otherwise phenomenally fit young woman.

And so it went on. The idea that the essence of the crime was not to click on a link in an email sent by Wada, when everyone listening to her around the world also regularly does not click on links in emails.

You might find all this too cynical. You might point out that Sharapova has spent so long carefully constructing her commercial image – she has been the highest paid female athlete in sport every year for the past decade, despite less than 20% of those annual earnings generally coming from prize money – that she would never do anything to jeopardise that brand.

Perhaps. You might feel that Wada should do more to make athletes aware of changes to the banned list, or that someone in Sharapova’s team should have helped her out. She’s a tennis-obsessed woman of 28. How can she possibly stay across her emails?

Or you might look at the figures, where Wada’s annual budget is $25m – less than Sharapova routinely makes from her endorsement deals alone – and wonder where else the sympathy might lie.

You might look at the basic and long-established protocol that every elite athlete is personally responsible for what is found in their body, or the fact that there have been 55 positive tests for meldonium in 2016 alone.

Or that Abeba Aregawi, 2013 world 1500m champion, has also tested positive for a drug well known to aid endurance and recovery, or that a 2015 study revealed that 724 of 4,316 Russian athletes tested were found to have meldonium in their system.

Maybe Sharapova is unlucky. Maybe there is an epidemic of heart disease among elite athletes, or that some of those others are cheating when Sharapova has merely been a little lax with her admin.

Maybe it is all too reminiscent of other cases from down the years for others to take her words at face value.

At the 2003 World Athletics Championships, US sprinter Kelli White tested positive for modafinil after winning 100m and 200m gold.

It was, she explained, a treatment for the sleeping disorder narcolepsy and had been prescribed by her doctor, Brian Goldman of San Francisco.

“I know I that I did nothing wrong and sought no advantage over my competitors,” she told a hastily-assembled group of journalists, wearing a sober black outfit and choosing her words carefully. “I am confident that things will work out in the end.”

White later admitted to not only taking modafinil to aid her performance, but also designer steroid THG and banned blood-booster EPO.

Sharapova is not Kelli White. There is no suggestion that she has taken any other performance-enhancing drugs. There are echoes, all the same, just as there are every time an elite athlete tests positive and attempts to take control of the fierce rally that follows.

So you might believe her. You might not. Three of her biggest sponsors, Nike, Tag Heuer and Porsche, have already put significant distance between themselves and their former ambassador.

But do not let it become about how much you admire Sharapova as a player or personality, or how she presented this to the world. There is one immutable rule in the anti-doping battle: it does not matter how much you like an athlete; they can still be looking for an unfair advantage. To believe anything else is to be both naive and ignorant of precedent.

Source link

Sharapova case: How athletes have fallen foul of the rules

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova has admitted failing a drug test because she didn’t know the substance was on a banned list under another name. How else have athletes fallen foul of doping rules?

Source link

ATP Launches 'Next Generation' 2016 Campaign

ATP Launches 'Next Generation' 2016 Campaign

Source link

Banned Sharapova 'to play' at Olympics

Maria Sharapova’s failed drugs test is a “game-changer for life, not just for tennis”, says her former coach.

Nick Bollettieri also told the BBC he was shocked the former world number one had tested positive because “she has always been above board in everything”.

He added: “It’s kind of tough to find a black mark against her.”

Sharapova has been taking meldonium since 2006 for health reasons – the substance was added to the banned list at the start of 2016.

The Russian revealed she tested positive at the Australian Open in January.

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) said Sharapova would be provisionally suspended from 12 March.

She could face up to a four-year ban.

“Everybody must accept responsibilities for everything they do in life.” American Bollettieri, 84, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Everything, not just for tennis and sports.”

Sportswear company Nike said it was ending its association with Sharapova until investigations were complete.

Watch manufacturer Tag Heuer have already said it does not plan to extend its contract with the 2004 Wimbledon champion.

“I did fail the test and take full responsibility for it,” said Sharapova.

With career earnings from tennis alone amounting to almost £26m, she claimed she had taken meldonium “for the past 10 years” after being given it by “my family doctor” but had known the drug as mildronate.

Meanwhile, Russia’s tennis chief says he expects Maria Sharapova to play at the 2016 Olympics despite her failed drugs test.

The Games in Rio de Janeiro start on 5 August.

“I think this is just a load of nonsense,” Russian Tennis Federation president Shamil Tarpishchev told the TASS news agency.

“The sportsmen take what they are given by the physiotherapists and by the doctors.

“I think Sharapova will play at the Olympics. However, we will need to see how this will develop.”

Source link