Doping of the world’s first racket
Iga Swiatek, then world number one, tested positive for doping on August 12, before the start of the prestigious tournament in Cincinnati.
The Polish athlete reached the semifinals in these competitions and then reached the fourth round of the US Open Grand Slam tournament. He was accused of doping because trimetazidine was detected in the tests carried out on September 12.
The tennis player was immediately suspended temporarily, although there was no public information about this, and the whole story about the positive test emerged only on November 28, when the final decision in the case was made.
After the automatic provisional suspension, events developed as follows: On 14 September, the Polish woman requested the opening of sample B, which contained a banned substance; On September 22, Schwiatek filed a petition to lift the temporary suspension, saying he did not knowingly take the drug but did not understand how it got into his system; On September 25, the Tennis Anti-Doping Agency (ITIA) refused to overturn the suspension.
However, the next day, Schwiatek submitted several expert reports to the ITIA and found that the melatonin tablets the athlete had taken contained trimetazidine, one of 14 drugs and supplements notified to her by the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association).
Next, he needed to send the remaining melatonin packet and a sealed packet of medication from the same batch. As a result of the analysis, it was revealed that both contained trimetazidine and in the same proportions as in the analysis. This conclusion was received by ITIA on 4 October and the suspension was lifted the same day.
During his time, Schwiatek missed tournaments in Seoul and Beijing and did not have time to travel to Wuhan. Additionally, the director of the last tournament issued a statement stating that Iga had decided not to participate in the competition due to a team change.
As a result, the final ITIA decision was made to disqualify the athlete for one month, as it was considered a temporary suspension period, which the Polish tennis player himself called “symbolic”, and he now has only eight days left to serve. . On December 4, Schwiatek could return and none of his results or rating points were canceled, only the prize money from the tournament in Cincinnati was decided to be taken away.
Same medicine as Valieva’s
Trimetazidine, for which Schwiatek was banned for one month, is the same drug for which Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was banned for four years. However, cases differ in both final decisions and process.
If the version of the Russian side that trimetazidine was used by the figure skater’s grandfather, who did not even attend the hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, was not believed, then the tennis player’s testimony was considered convincing.
Schwiatek confirmed that melatonin was prescribed to him by his psychologist Daria Abramowitz and that the tennis player has been using melatonin since 2019 to help him sleep better. In Poland, the drug is considered a medical drug and is sold without a prescription.
The evidence list included all bank statements and receipts from a pharmacy “in good standing.” Moreover, in one of the controls, the batch number matched the batch number containing trimetazidine. The reason for the contamination is that melatonin and trimetazidine are produced by the same manufacturer.
The statement states that Schwiatek took 2-3 melatonin tablets around 3 a.m. on August 12 and was woken up to take the same test in the morning. Experts confirmed that the banned substance entered the body by accident, and its concentration in tests accurately indicates the time when everything happened.
As a result, the court decided that the tennis player was not to blame for the doping that entered his body and took every precaution to prevent this from happening. At the same time, the reputation of the athlete, who had not been involved in any doping scandals before, was also taken into account.
mixed reaction
However, the world of tennis and sports perceived this news differently, especially against the background of the earlier story about the Italian Jannik Sinner, whose doping case with clostebol of the first racket of the men’s world was also untimely revealed. There was no disqualification for the sinner and the two temporary suspensions lasted only a few days.
“Our sport is finished. They all use the excuse that they didn’t know. They just didn’t know. The always sharp-tongued Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios wrote on his social networks that sports professionals at the highest level can simply say “we didn’t know.”
“Um, a one-month disqualification… So it’s not fair for Halep and the others to get incredibly long disqualifications for something like this. I’m glad the situation has changed because the doping rules are unfair. But guys like Ymer are still disqualified despite not having passed a single positive test (he missed three tests without a valid reason – “socialbites.ca”),” These are the words of Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov.
Simona Halep herself reacted harshly to the incident. Romania’s former world number one missed almost two years of his career due to a doping case and was eventually acquitted.
“I’m sitting here trying to understand, but I really can’t. I ask myself why such different attitudes, such different solutions? I can’t understand it and I don’t think there is a logical answer to this. “This is simply the malicious intent of ITIA, an organization that did absolutely everything to destroy me despite the obvious,” Halep wrote.
“He really wanted to ruin the last years of my career, he wanted something I could never have imagined. I always believed in good things, I believed in the justice of this sport, I believed in its goodness. I was hurt by the injustice done to me, I am hurt now, and perhaps I always will be. How can ITIA treat players differently and act against me in the same situations occurring at the same time? How could I accept the fact that the WTA and the players’ council did not want to give me back the rating I deserved?!
Russian Yevgeny Kafelnikov, a former world number one, was also furious.
“Sometimes I wonder: Why didn’t I take steroids my whole career so that I could play, say, 300 games a year instead of 170? “It’s a shame what’s happening to tennis right now,” he wrote on social networks.
However, American Taylor Fritz, who finished the year in fourth place in the rankings, called for impartiality and balance in expressing his views:
“What drives me crazy in these situations is not the actions themselves, but the reactions. We don’t know all the details, so I’m against speculation. It’s okay to speak your mind, but I don’t understand this crazy bias in the tennis community. Fritz says he will support any story that advances the agenda people want to advance.
— If a favorite player’s opponent tests positive, people constantly call him a cheater, a doper, a disgrace. And if, on the contrary, he is a favorite, then: “He is innocent, zero questions.” Can’t you overcome your prejudices and form a logical, objective view?
“This will not affect Schwiatek’s career”
For socialbites.ca, the situation was commented on by Nadezhda Petrova, the former world third racket, Olympic bronze medalist and creator of her own tennis school.
“It is very difficult for me to answer this question. If there are rules, why are they not followed? They make some concessions, they make exceptions… The situation is the same in men’s tennis this season. If the second player in the world really passes a positive test, he will be in the ATP to attract less attention.” I believe they will do the same thing as they did to Jannik Sinner. Moreover, the famous tennis player says that Schwiatek is a former number one among the top three players.
“Maybe he’ll get a verbal warning.” They will now monitor him closely and perform repeated tests. But the off-season is starting – they may try to quickly forget this story, encouraging him to stay out of action for a month or two and return to the Australian Open.
I don’t think this will affect his career. He and his team will likely be more careful about the supplements he takes to regain his physical condition. “This is unlikely to affect him anymore.”
What are you thinking?
Source: Gazeta
Gregory Robert is a sports aficionado and a writer for “Social Bites”. He provides in-depth coverage of the latest sporting events and trends, offering a unique and knowledgeable perspective on the world of sports.