Tennis star can play again
Halep’s doping ban is drastically shortened
March 5, 2024, 5:53 p.m
The two-time Grand Slam tournament winner Simona Halep has been successful with an appeal to the Cas Sports Court. She was banned for a long time for doping, but is now allowed to play again. However, the judges still see misconduct on the part of the player.
Great success at the Green Table for Simona Halep: The International Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) has reduced the doping ban against the former tennis world number one from Romania from four years to nine months. The 32-year-old has already served this sentence, meaning the former French Open and Wimbledon winner can return to professional tennis immediately.
Halep was banned for four years by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) last year for two anti-doping rule violations. The two-time Grand Slam winner has been out since October 2022 after a temporary ban. Halep went before the CAS, after a three-day hearing in February she confidently declared: “My faith in the strength of the truth remains intact. I look forward to returning to the tennis courts.”
The CAS now agreed with her – at least largely. “After careful consideration of all the evidence presented, the panel concluded that Ms. Halep established, on the balance of probabilities, that roxadustat occurred in her diet through the consumption of a contaminated dietary supplement that she had taken in the days immediately preceding August 29, 2022 The CAS said: “The roxadustat detected in your sample came from this contaminated product.”
The anomalies, it was said, in her biological passport were not sufficient to prove doping behavior. Roxadustat is an anemia medication that stimulates the production of red blood cells in the body. Nevertheless, the CAS judges said, Halep bears a “certain degree of culpability or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient caution to comply with doping regulations.”