Has Sharapova done anything wrong (1 Viewer)

[chaser]

Might be up the wall with this as I havnt gone into it, but if the new ruling came in in January on this drug how can she be done for using it last year when it wasn't banned

 

[DuxDeluxe]

....plenty of advance notice was given that it would be banned from January 1st this year but for some unfathomable reason her team chose to ignore it and she continued to take this heart medication. Had she stopped when the notice came out then there would not have been an issue. Either she is stupid, her team is stupid, or both. Inexcusable

 

[Judge Mental]

Apart from taking 147 million in the period she was on drugs...nothing at all that I can see!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Deleted member 29692]

Assuming she hasn't had a heart attack recently, and I think we might have heard if she had, she had no good reason to be taking this substance other than to enhance performance in some way or another.

 

[chaser]

Apart from taking 147 million in the period she was on drugs...nothing at all that I can see!

Yeah I take your point and I am as much against drugs as anyone , but I was just looking at the rules on this one , I don't know anything about tennis or drugs but if it wasn't banned at the time , anyone could have taken it much the same as protein drinks or whatever, don't say they would want to but just looking at the facts, I know you all are right as she wouldn't of been banned otherwise, just saying

 

[Zains Pops]

She is a cheat. The standard treatment period that this drug is used is six weeks. She has used it for ten years!!
Can't believe that in her team there is not a medical expert to monitor her pills and potion consumption. Top athletes need to be careful with cold remedies onwards, they all know it and the honest ones behave accordingly.
It will be interesting to see how long her ban will be, will long legs and blonde hair get her an easy ride. At least Wimbledon will be quieter without her grunting this year.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Poohbear]

I think I'd give her an easy ride

 

[7735]

If they could give her something to stop her grunting I would have no objection. I watch her with the sound down.

Spongy

 

[Clickem]

Might be up the wall with this as I havnt gone into it, but if the new ruling came in in January on this drug how can she be done for using it last year when it wasn't banned

She failed the test at the OZ Open in January 2016, after the ban was introduced

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Hollyberry]

If I were her I'd be more worried about the long term effects. Haven't read much on it but I understand this medication is only for short term use for the medical condition it would be prescribed for. And she's been taking it for 10 years? What people will do for ego and money.

 

[robnchris]

Perhaps WADA should ban training that enhances performance.
Big brother and the pc world are just about bringing all sports to their knees.
Yet watching premiership football rules don`t appear to be anything important, goals given incorrectly when a foul has been committed or scored offside all of which have changed the result of the game which could and has affected league position, which means big bucks.i`m surprised some of these owners haven`t sued certain refs of wrong decisions.
I always remember when Spurs player Mendes scored from 50 yes against Man Utd. Everyone in the ground new that it was a pucker goal except the linesman Rob Lewis and the Referee.
Video footage showed the ball was actually 4 feet over the line and yet the result stood costing Spurs 3 points.

 

[Jim]

We are always 10 steps behind the dopers Sometimes i think we should ban the drugs tests and let them all get on with it.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DuxDeluxe]

She is a cheat. The standard treatment period that this drug is used is six weeks. She has used it for ten years!!
Can't believe that in her team there is not a medical expert to monitor her pills and potion consumption. Top athletes need to be careful with cold remedies onwards, they all know it and the honest ones behave accordingly.
It will be interesting to see how long her ban will be, will long legs and blonde hair get her an easy ride. At least Wimbledon will be quieter without her grunting this year.

Exactly what I said to Mrs Deluxe yesterday - might even watch the Wimbledon tennis this year if she isn't playing

 

[BMStewart2004]

The performance enhancing aspects of this drug are substantial - apparently something like 17% of Russian athletes tested were found to be on it and 2.2% of other. That's what prompted WADA to look at banning it on 1st January 2016 and announcing that it was to be banned back on 1st January 2015. The course is 4-6 weeks and she has been on it for 10 years....quite a few repeat prescriptions at Boots.
It's not a recognised treatment in the US either.
The ITU mailed tennis players 5 times saying it was going to be banned prior to 1st January 2016 and she was still on it!! WTF...
BTW there are a number of runners and at least one cyclist currently banned because of it.
There'll be more to follow.
If only they'd release the Operation Puerto blood bags then a load more would be found out but the Spanish courts are holding off on that one.

Rant over

 

[laird of Dunstan]

shes been using the stuff as a performance enhancer for 10 years,its only manufactured in one laboratory and thats in Latvia ,which was part of the old USSR, shes been cheating for years,just because it was not on the register,does not mean that she was not cheating, the USSR was as bent as a five bob note when it came to cheating

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[BMStewart2004]

Maria Sharapova is not the first athlete to fail a test for meldonium this year – distance runners dominated the previous week’s doping news for it. Nor will Sharapova be the last – Olympic and world champion speed and figure skaters followed her in short order, and new cases seem to be happening daily. She is, however, the most prominent symbol for now of the drug du jour, a relatively unknown Latvian medicine created to treat heart conditions but which is now gaining such exposure that it reportedly sold out of online stores in the aftermath of Sharapova’s confession.

Sharapova’s vague explanations and justifications for her own meldonium use did little to dissuade the view that she was taking it for performance-enhancement reasons. There was nothing wrong with doing so until 1 January this year, either. Given the enticement of the performance benefits, lack of side-effects and legality of meldonium, perhaps the only surprise is that only 2.2% of a sample of 8,320 athletes were using it (its use predominantly seems to be in eastern European nations because it is not Food and Drug Administration-approved in the US and unavailable in much of the world).

That use provoked the World Anti‑Doping Agency to put meldonium on its watch-list, monitoring and researching its use and effects, and then on the banned list this year. Wada would have made that decision for two reasons. First, meldonium was clearly being used widely enough by a population of elite athletes that really should have no business needing a drug for heart disease. Second, there are enough theoretical reasons to believe it does enhance performance.
Interestingly, the founder of meldonium came out to defend the drug (and Sharapova), suggesting it did not enhance performance but rather returned the athlete to a normal condition. He equated it to eating meat to help with recovery. That is disingenuous, because testosterone and growth hormone, both obvious doping products, do the same thing – any intervention that aids recovery means better training, and that means better performance.
More interestingly, the very same founder had previously authored an abstract to a sports science conference in which many benefits of meldonium were promised, including enhanced aerobic capabilities, endurance performance, and recovery. Wada would have noted this and developed the relevant tests – 2016’s spate of meldonium positives are the result.
With respect to Wada’s banned substance list, it is important to realise it is not carved in stone. Rather it is a fluid, changing document, and all athletes and medical personnel know this. There can be no expectation that things remain constant from year to year, and so medical staff and athletes have a known obligation to stay up to date, particularly when concerning scheduled medicines for serious conditions.

You could forgive an athlete for tripping up over herbal ingredients finding their way into supplements, as has happened in the past. But meldonium is no herbal supplement. Nor is it caffeine, or a multivitamin. It is an ischemic heart drug, created for people who are very sick – studies on patients with angina, a symptom of heart conditions, shows how severely exercise-intolerant they tend to be.

That this drug is being used by even one in 50 athletes (and one in six in Russia, where it is more readily available by virtue of its Latvian “birth”) should highlight the absurdity of it all – a regulated drug, prescription only, being more prevalent in elite athletes than in many elderly, ill populations is an untenable situation. Even the possibility of risk is grounds to ban it.
Since Sharapova’s announcement, many have argued that meldonium should not even be on the list given the relatively weak evidence for benefits, but this is just more obfuscation. The reality is that it is on the banned list, that this was communicated to athletes with plenty of warning, and that its presence on the list is entirely justified since it is a regulated medicine being used without any medical necessity.
The best case you can make for Sharapova is that she was grossly negligent. That she, along with her many advisers, failed to take heed of not one, but multiple alerts that meldonium was to be added to the banned list in 2016. That negligence need not be innocent, either. Ignoring the alerts may be entirely accidental, or it may be born of a disregard for anti-doping authorities. Perhaps in Maria Sharapova’s world, an email alert from Wada or the ITF concerning doping is the equivalent of the spam we receive from Nigerian banks?
A final option – the worst case – is deliberate use, and not much needs to be added to that. It would be conscious cheating, and worthy of every day of a four-year ban.
Time will tell which way the dice fall for Sharapova, and by extension, the mounting number of meldonium compatriots.

Professor Ross Tucker is an exercise physiologist and high performance sports science consultant

 

[BMStewart2004]

 

[DiggerJon]

I have absolutely no sympathy for this gurning, whining, grunting CHEAT who willingly took a drug which enhanced her performance and continued to do so even when she and her team were informed it was banned. Another one who thinks she is above the rules of the game and is so obsessed by money and power that she probably believed she was too big to fall. A good wake up call to the other cheats. I'm sure that she will not die in penury despite losing about £100 million in sponsorship deals.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[wingman]

Yes, yes, but she's got lovely legs!

 

[Chris]

It's what I expect of Russian athletes.

 

[TheTwoOfUs]

She has my full sympathy. It was obvious that she was having a heart attack every time she hit the ball.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[frogijock]

She failed the drug test at this years (2016) Australian Open

 

[DuxDeluxe]

It's what I expect of Russian athletes.

What?

The legs?
The drug taking?
Both?

 

[Chris]

What?

The legs?
The drug taking?
Both?

Cheating.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Cyclewalkbob]

What really annoys me about this is that she is a drugs cheat, yet all her "friends and ex playing colleagues" are going out their way to make excuses for her. It makes me think how many others are taking drugs.

An example should be made of her, it is not as if she was a low level athlete with few people to tell her what to take and not take, she had a whole retinue, who at the least should have known the drug was now banned.

If she does not get a long sentence then the wrong message will be sent to all those young players following in her footsteps!

 

[DuxDeluxe]

Cheating.

Not the long legs then?


Quite agree about the cheating - been going on for over 50 years.......

 

[chaser]

Ok , that's answered my op then, thanks guys

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Forestboy]

She's just a dirty cheat but then most sports nowadays seem to be full of cheats.

 

[Just smiffy]

I think some funsters need to take drug tests...... Some of their posts are a bit questionable.........

 

[chaser]

I wasn't sticking up for her, just going on the facts, if she has been on it ten years, presumably she has had other drugs tests, why wasn't it picked up on before.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}