Maria Sharapova May Avoid Four-Year Drugs Ban

An anti-doping expert has said Maria Sharapova may be spared the maximum four-year ban for failing a drug test if she can prove she has a condition which requires the treatment she took. Sharapova announced on Monday she had tested positive for a substance called meldonium at this year's Australian Open.

Meldonium was placed on the banned list by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) at the beginning of the year, having been part of its monitoring programme throughout 2015.

Sharapova said she had legally taken the medication since 2006 to deal with health issues including an irregular heartbeat. Grindeks, the Latvian company which manufactures meldonium says the normal course of treatment for the drug is four to six weeks.

Grindeks said in a statement “Depending on the patient's health condition, treatment course of meldonium preparations may vary from four to six weeks. Treatment course can be repeated twice or thrice a year. Only physicians can follow and evaluate patient's health condition and state whether the patient should use meldonium for a longer period of time”.

Sharapova will be provisionally suspended from tennis later this week and could face a ban of up to four years. However, former UK Sport anti-doping chief Michele Verroken believes she could receive a minimum of a one-year ban if she can prove she needed to take the drug for medical purposes. He said “This is a strict liability issue and to test positive, as it were, for a prohibited substance is a strict liability matter. You are responsible for what is found in your sample, you are responsible for what goes into your body. So, to just say that you didn't notice it had been added to the list will not be considered the excuse to totally evaluate any sanction. Now the challenge facing Maria Sharapova and her team is to bring forward the diagnostic evidence that she has a condition that required the prescription of this treatment. But if she can actually prove that she may get some leniency from the disciplinary panel”.