MARIA SHARAPOVA’S career hangs in the balance after she was banned for two years for doping.
The Russian failed a drugs test at January’s Australian Open and later admitted being a long-time user of meldonium.
The suspension is heavier than predicted and by the time injury-prone Sharapova returns she will be less than three months from her 31st birthday.
The International Tennis Federation announced the ban and said, because of the Russian’s quick admission of guilt, it would be backdated to January 26 – the day she gave a sample following her Australian Open quarter-final defeat by Serena Williams.
In March, she called a press conference to admit she had tested positive for meldonium, a drug originally designed for patients with chronic heart problems, which had been added to the list of banned substances on January 1 by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Sharapova said she had been taking the drug for 10 years to treat a number of health conditions, including signs of diabetes and heart irregularities.
But she admitted not reading a December email from WADA telling her and other athletes that meldonium - which she knew by the name mildronate - was prohibited from January 1.
A huge number of other athletes, many of them Russian, have also tested positive for meldonium since the ban came into force.
And WADA was forced to admit in April that the drug could linger in the bloodstream longer than it thought.
It said any athlete found with less than one microgram of meldonium in a sample given before March 1 would be granted an amnesty.
But Sharapova clearly did not fall into this category.
The two-year ban is less than the four-year maximum Sharapova would have received if she had been found guilty of intentionally taking a banned substance.
Sharapova was included in Russia's teams for the upcoming Olympics in Rio despite her drugs charge
The WADA code allows for a reduction to just one year if an athlete can prove they were not significantly at fault for an unintentional rule breach.
But the anti-doping tribunal ruled Sharapova was the author of her own downfall.
The tribunal found she did not intentionally take meldonium knowing it was a banned substance, but added: “However she does bear sole responsibility for the contravention, and very significant fault, in failing to take any steps to check whether the continued use of this medicine was permissible.
If she had not concealed her use of Mildronate from the anti-doping authorities, members of her own support team and the doctors whom she consulted, but had sought advice, then the contravention would have been avoided. She is the sole author of her own misfortune.”
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