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Simona Halep: Two-time Grand Slam champion set for return as doping ban cut from four years to nine months

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7 months ago

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Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep appealed against her four-year doping ban from tennis in October 2023; it has now been reduced to nine months; having already served a provisional suspension since October 2022, the Romanian can return to tennis with immediate effect

Simona Halep’s doping ban has been reduced from four years to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Having already served a provisional suspension since October 2022, she can return to tennis with immediate effect as the nine-month ban expired on July 6, 2023.

The 32-year-old Romanian star was banned by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) for “intentional” doping offences.
The CAS Panel determined that “on the balance of probabilities” Halep had not taken the banned substance Roxadustat purposely and while she “did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations” it was not intentional.

Halep tested positive for Roxadustat after the US Open in August 2022 from a sample taken during the tournament and she was subsequently provisionally suspended in October of last year.

Halep objected to the intentional nature of the charge and argued that the positive test was the result of contamination.

Former WTA number 1 tennis player Simona Halep arrives for a hearing at the international Court of Arbitration for Sport
A statement from the CAS panel said: “Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it, the CAS panel determined that Ms Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that the Roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement which she had used in the days shortly before August 29, 2022 and that the Roxadustat, as detected in her sample, came from that contaminated product.

 

As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had also established, on the balance of probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.”Although the CAS Panel found that Ms. Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence.”

CAS dismissed the biological passport finding, saying: “Contrary to the reasoning of the first instance tribunal, the CAS panel determined that it was appropriate in the circumstances to consider the results of a private blood sample given by Ms Halep on September 9, 2022 in the context of a surgery which occurred shortly thereafter.

“Those results, and Ms Halep’s public statements that she did not intend to compete for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year, impacted the plausibility of the doping scenarios relied upon by the International Tennis
Federation independent tribunal.

“Having regard to the evidence as a whole, the CAS panel was not comfortably satisfied that an anti-doping rule violation had occurred. It therefore dismissed that charge.”


occurred. It therefore dismissed that charge.”

In a statement, Halep said: “Throughout this long and difficult process, I have maintained my belief that the truth will eventually come out and that a fair decision will be reached because I am and always have been a clean athlete.

 

 

 

 

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