ROMA. The reasons that led to the disqualification of last March were made known by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Simona Halepwinner at Roland Garros in 2018 and at Wimbledon in 2019, former number 1 on the women’s circuit, suspended for 9 months for “careless use of a contaminated supplement”, taken by the Romanian under the advice of her personal physiotherapist “who is not a doctor or a clinician” .
A case that may recall that of Clostebol in which Jannik Sinner stumbled, also under scrutiny by the Tas judges. In the ruling, the Lausanne-based judges ask themselves “why, in such a highly professional environment, questions related to possible anti-doping problems are entrusted to people who have no experience in this sector”.
And again: “The athlete should have understood the limits of the qualifications of his physiotherapist and the fact that a tournament was being played in the United States, on a continent far from his own, cannot justify the failure to consult a specialist and rely of such a delicate task to a person without the necessary medical skills”.
In March, however, the CAS had reduced the disqualification imposed on Halep from 4 years to 9 months – positive in a test on 29 August 2022 after the US Open – by Itia, the international agency for the integrity of tennis, the same one that acquitted Sinner.