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Simona Halep’s appeal against a four-year ban for doping has been upheld and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) reduced her ban to nine months.
The 32-year-old former world number one and two-time Grand Slam champion had been provisionally suspended since October 2022, meaning she is now eligible to return to the sport with immediate effect.
While the case was not dismissed outright, the CAS ruled that, based on “the balance of probabilities,” Halep’s anti-doping rule violations were “not intentional.”
“Throughout this long and difficult process, I have maintained my belief that the truth would eventually come to light and that a fair decision would be reached, because I am and always have been a clean athlete,” Halep said in a statement.
“My faith in the process was tested by the outrageous accusations leveled against me and the seemingly limitless resources arrayed against me. But in the end, the truth prevailed, although it took much longer than I would have liked.
“I would like to thank my lawyers who were with me and believed in me from the beginning; and most importantly, I want to thank my sponsors, my fans and my competitors who were with me during this long and difficult process. I can’t wait to get back on tour.
“I would especially like to thank my fellow Romanians who believed unconditionally and motivated me to bring this battle to a successful and legitimate outcome.”
Halep won Wimbledon in 2019 (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
Halep was charged twice by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) in September, once related to the use of the banned substance Roxadustat at the 2022 US Open.
Roxadustat is commonly used in people suffering from anemia, a disease resulting from low levels of red blood cells, and stimulates the production of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which promotes resistance.
The second charge revolved around alleged irregularities in Halep’s Athlete Biological Passport (ABP), which monitors selected variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping.
The Romanian maintained her innocence and appealed the decision, saying in a statement on social media that she “refused to accept” the suspension, and the CAS announced on Tuesday that it had ruled in her favor.
The CAS verdict read: “Having carefully considered all the evidence presented, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that Roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement that she had used in the days shortly before August 29, 2022 and that the Roxadustat, as detected in their sample, came from that contaminated product.
“As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had also established, considering the probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.
“Although the CAS Panel determined that Ms. Halep had some level of fault or negligence for her violations, in that she did not take sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she did not have any significant fault or negligence.”
Regarding the ABP charge, the CAS ruled that a private blood test conducted by Halep along with her public statements that she had no intention of competing for the remainder of the 2022 calendar year “affected the plausibility of the doping scenarios in which the ITF Independent Tribunal relied on it… and therefore dismissed that charge.”
The initial decision had threatened to end his career (the ruling banned him from competing until after the Grand Slam calendar ended in 2026), but he is now free to return whenever he wants.
Halep first topped the WTA rankings in 2017 and won the French Open in 2018, defeating Sloane Stephens, before beating Serena Williams to win Wimbledon in 2019.
GO DEEPER
Simona Halep’s biggest match yet: An attempt to overturn the drug ban in court
Analysis
By Matthew Futterman
Simona Halep made a mistake. She took a supplement given to her by her trainer, Patrick Mouratoglou, without doing due diligence. Mouratoglou is largely to blame for this. He has accepted responsibility, although the system does not hold coaches accountable. (Note to tennis: change this.)
He also did not mention that supplement in his first interview with investigators or in the list of substances he had been taking. That looked bad.
But anyone who has covered doping cases before and bothered to analyze the arguments Halep presented could clearly see that this was not an offense that warranted a four-year suspension, which would likely end Halep’s career. , who is 32 years old. .
Forget Halep’s history as a clean athlete. Go to science.
Her team obtained the same batch of nutritional supplement that she took and found Roxadustat in it. Howard Jacobs, Halep’s attorney, who has handled dozens of doping cases, thought it would be a basic supplemental case with a lesser sentence, like the one she received on appeal.
But the International Tennis Integrity Agency largely dismissed that finding and did not accept the science showing that fluctuations in Halep’s hemoglobin levels were within her normal range, or that the possibility that her nasal surgery and a period abundant could have caused some minor problem. fluctuations in his blood.
The agency is relatively new compared to other anti-doping authorities. Halep is a big name and one of the agency’s first greats, so to speak. “When you find out that a substance is contaminated and then you say, ‘Well, that didn’t cause the positive test result,’ that doesn’t make sense,” Jacobs said in an interview.
Jacobs said much the same thing about the other charge against Halep, especially since Halep had her own blood tests done from her nasal surgery in early September. “His arguments in favor of blood doping didn’t make any sense,” Jacobs said.
And after nearly a year and a half of litigation, about half of which was largely unnecessary, that’s what the CAS decided.
(Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)