Maria Sharapova Fails Drug Test

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Mar 26, 2005
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Quelle surprise!

Isn't it pretty much a prerequisite these days for a world-class athlete in most sports to take steroids in some capacity?
 

BroodsSexton

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Feb 4, 2006
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guam
Please be cocaine Please be cocaine Please be cocaine Please be cocaine.
Meldonium.
Sharapova received a letter from the International Tennis Federation several days ago informing her that she had failed the test for Meldonium, a substance that had been legal until Jan. 1 of this year. Sharapova did not indicate what the penalties would be or how long she might be away from the game of tennis.

She had begun taking Meldonium in 2006 to aid in a variety of health problems. However, the drug was added to a banned list starting at the beginning of 2016. Sharapova conceded that she did not look at the list of newly banned substances for 2016 from the World Anti-Doping Agency, and thus indicated that she failed the drug test because of ignorance.
 

PaulinMyrBch

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I'd bang, and I'm pretty sure I'd be the one needing the endurance drug.

A 2015 paper written by authors at the Center for Preventive Doping Research and the European Monitoring Center for Emerging Doping Agents, described the "anti-ischemic drug" as one that could perhaps demonstrate "an increase in endurance performance of athletes, improved rehabilitation after exercise, protection against stress, and enhanced activations of central nervous system (CNS) functions."
 

BGrif21125

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Jan 15, 2004
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Quelle surprise!

Isn't it pretty much a prerequisite these days for a world-class athlete in most sports to take steroids in some capacity?
I assume that every top tennis player has someone in their entourage (most likely the "physio" in most cases) who is responsible for keeping track of all the PEDs they're taking and making sure they're all undetectable or on the approved list.

Sounds like that person in Sharapova's camp dropped the ball.
 

Fred not Lynn

Dick Button Jr.
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Jul 13, 2005
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I just posted on this in Radomski's...missed this thread. The issue very much transcends tennis - all of Russia seems to be on this stuff, and they ALL got busted.

In short, Meldonium was 100% legal, and readily available in Russia - and only banned by WADA effective Jan 1, 2016. Sharapova claims literally to not have gotten the memo to stop using it.
 

zenter

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Oct 11, 2005
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WTA's response walks a fine line to avoid calling ITF out for being harsh and goes out of its way to praise Sharapova for her openness. I wonder what emails between WTA and ITF look like right now.