Simona Halep was banned officially until 2026 4 years after being first provisionally suspended back in October of last year.
Halep has confirmed she will appeal the sentence the two-time Grand Slam champion has been provisionally suspended after testing positive for a banned substance called Roxadustat. Roxadustat is an oral medication used to treat anemia in patients with chronic kidney disease.
It helps stimulate the production of red blood cells through improved iron absorption and mobilization increased, endogenous production of erythropoietin, and downregulation of hepcidin.
Halep continues to deny any wrongdoing and says she will appeal the sentence in the court of arbitration of sports.
She won the French Open in 2018 and Wimbledon the following year. She is the first high-profile tennis player to fail a drug test since Maria Sharapova in 2016.
Halep was ranked number one in the world in 2017 & 2018. After being provisionally suspended for almost a full year, Simona Halep’s doping case has come to some sort of conclusion with her getting banned for 4 years from the tour.
Let’s have a look at what the ITIA had to say in their statement. So this is what the ITIA had to say or 11th of September 2023, the Tribunal confirmed that it had found the player had committed intentional and doping rule violation under Article 2 of the presence and the use of rocks to dust as evidence in Halep’s urine sample collection on 29 August 2022 at the US Open use of a prohibited substance or method during 2022 based on collection and analysis of 51 blood samples, provided by the player as part of the ABP program Tribunal accepted Halep’s argument that they had taken a contaminated supplement named Roxadustat.
The second charge related to irregularities in Halep’s athlete biological passport. So, yesterday an independent tribunal confirmed that he’d found the player had committed an intentional anti-doping rule violation.
The tribunal accepted Halep’s argument that they had taken contaminated supplements but determined the volume that the play ingested could not have resulted in the concentration of the positive sample and had no reason to doubt the unanimous strong opinion reached by each of the three independent athlete passport management unit experts that doping was likely the explanation for the irregularity in Halep’s passport that has been provisionally suspended since October 2022. With the tribunal accredited against the period of ineligibility as such the former world number one suspension will run from 7 October 2022 until 6th of October 2026.
The case remains subject to appeal; they have massive news coming out of the Simona Halep scandal. The 31-year-old two-time grand slam champion has been provisionally suspended for 4 years including the provisional suspension of the last year so 3 years till now.
Simona Halep stated that
“While I am grateful to finally have an outcome following numerous unfounded late and a feeling of living in forgery for over a year I am both shocked and disappointed by their decision I intend to appeal this decision to the court of arbitration for sports and pursue All legal remedies against the supplement company in questions “
Halep will appeal the sentence in the court of arbitration of a sport. She said in a statement and quote
“Last year has been the hardest match of my life and unfortunately my fight continues. I have devoted my whole life to the beautiful game of tennis and I take the rules that govern our sport seriously and take pride in the fact I have never knowingly or intentionally used any prohibited substance. I refuse to accept their decision of a 4-year ban.”
