Female world international tennis player. Maria Sharapova
has been banned for two years over drug use by the International Tennis Federation for
testing positive for meldonium at
the Australian Open, which may end the career
of the world's richest female athlete of the past decade.
The five-time
Grand Slam champion was provisionally suspended by the ITF in early March, when
she announced at a news conference in Los Angeles that she failed a doping test
in January.
Sharapova
claimed she had been taking meldonium since 2006 for heart issues, a magnesium
deficiency and because her family has a history of diabetes.
"The ITF
tribunal unanimously concluded that what I did was not intentional," the
29-year-old Sharapova said. "The tribunal found that I did not seek
treatment from my doctor for the purpose of obtaining a performance enhancing
substance. The ITF spent tremendous amounts of time and resources trying to
prove I intentionally violated the anti-doping rules and the tribunal concluded
I did not.
"You need
to know that the ITF asked the tribunal to suspend me for four years -- the
required suspension for an intentional violation -- and the tribunal rejected
the ITF's position.
"While the
tribunal concluded correctly that I did not intentionally violate the
anti-doping rules, I cannot accept an unfairly harsh two-year suspension. The
tribunal, whose members were selected by the ITF, agreed that I did not do
anything intentionally wrong, yet they seek to keep me from playing tennis for
two years."
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