Iga Swiatek is the second high-profile tennis player to test positive for a banned substance this year, with the five-time grand slam champion and current World No 2 receiving a one-month ban from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
The ITIA announced on Thursday that Swiatek had accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the prohibited substance trimetazidine (TMZ) - a medication used to treat heart conditions that, in a sporting context, can increase blood flow and improve endurance.
It comes just months after men’s World No 1 Jannik Sinner twice tested positive for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid. Sinner was cleared as the ITIA accepted there was “no fault or negligence” - although the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA ) are appealing.
Meanwhile, Swiatek was found to have been “at the lowest end of the range for no significant fault or negligence” after the 23-year-old Polish player explained that her doping violation was caused by a contaminated supply of the non-prescription medication melatonin, which she uses to help with jet lag and sleep issues.
Following interviews with Swiatek and analysis of the medicine from independent laboratories, the ITIA accepted the explanation that the melatonin provided to her by her physio was contaminated during manufacturing, resulting in an extremely low trace of TMZ. Swiatek tested positive in an out-of-competition sample on August 12, before the Cincinnati Open.
How did the TMZ get into Swiatek’s system?
Swiatek explained that she has used melatonin to help regulate her sleep patterns and deal with jet lag, which came as a result of her frequent travel. In Poland, melatonin is classified as a medication and is available to buy off the shelf in pharmacies and Swiatek said her physio would usually buy the product for her.
Swiatek competed at the Olympics in Paris, winning the bronze medal on August 2 after defeat to Qinwen Zheng in the semi-finals the previous day. She arrived at the Cincinnati Open shortly before August 12, where she was called to provide a sample for doping control at around 6-7am. A urine sample was collected and taken to a WADA-accredited laboratory in Montreal for analysis.
Swiatek was asked to list on a doping control form any “medications or supplements” she had taken over the past seven days. She provided a list of 14 supplements and medications on the form but did not include melatonin, even though Swiatek later explained that she had ingested two to three tables of the product at around 2-3am that morning when she was unable to sleep.
In providing evidence to the ITIA, Swiatek explained that she forgot to include melatonin because it was not on her list of medications and supplements that she would copy across from form to form. She also said she was tired, having had her sleep interrupted by being summoned by doping control. The ITIA later said the reasons for this omission were “unsatisfactory”.
Swiatek’s urine sample was split into an A-sample and a B-sample, and the A-sample was found to contain the banned substance TMZ. Swiatek was informed of her positive test on September 12 and she replied two days later requesting further analysis of her B-sample, which returned the same result as the A-sample: a trace concentration of 50 pg/ml.
How Swiatek proved contamination
Swiatek was issued with a provisional suspension on September 12, which she appealed within the 10-day deadline. She denied deliberately or knowingly using TMZ, maintained she did not know what the source of the TMZ in her sample was, and told the ITIA that it must have been ingested by mistake through a contamination.
After being informed of her positive B-sample, Swiatek and her team sent packages of all the products she had been using prior to the August 12 test - including the melatonin - to two laboratories, one in Paris and one in Strasbourg. The analysis of the products used by Swiatek showed the sample of melatonin tablets - a Poland-made product called LEK-AM Melatonina - she had taken on the morning of August 12 was contaminated with TMZ, and those results were sent to the ITIA.
In response, the ITIA said it would examine the melatonin tablets at another WADA-accredited laboratory in Salt Lake City, Utah. But the ITIA said it was unable to contact the Polish manufacturer of the melatonin, despite attempting to do so by telephone and email, in order to obtain from themselves a container of the product from the same batch. The ITIA said that was not possible due to the product’s expiry date and the non-response of the manufacturer.
Instead, Swiatek’s team provided both the opened container of the melatonin product used on August 12 and a sealed container from the same batch. The ITIA said it “verified that the sealed container obtained was from the same batch as that used by Swiatek (the batch numbers matched) and the sealed container had a tamper-evident seal”.
On 4 October, the laboratory in Salt Lake City said it had found TMZ in tablets from both the opened and previously sealed containers of the melatonin, and ruled that contamination had occurred during manufacturing. The ITIA ruled the whole batch of melatonin had been contaminated and, despite its non-response, the ITIA also said manufacturer of the melatonin also makes a TMZ product in the same factory.
Additional testing and the ITIA’s ruling
Swiatek was also called for drug tests on August 1 and August 2, after her semi-final and bronze-medal match at the Paris Olympics, as well as during the US Open. She was informed of her positive test eight days after her quarter-final defeat to Jessica Pegula. All of the other doping tests around the August 12 date were negative, with Swiatek only using the melatonin product that morning because she was struggling to sleep.
The ITIA ruled in Swiatek’s favour and found the the negative tests, as well as samples of Swiatek’s hair that did not contain traces of TMZ, showed that she could not have used the substance as a therapeutic dose before the August 12. The ITIA said Swiatek’s violation was at the lowest end of the range of “no significant fault or negligence”. Swiatek accepted the one-month suspension offered by the ITIA.
“Once the source of the TMZ had been established, it became clear that this was a highly unusual instance of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated medicine,” ITIA chief executive Karen Moorhouse said.
“However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medication in one country cannot of itself be sufficient to avoid any level of fault. Taking into account the nature of the medication, and all the circumstances, it does place that fault at the lowest end of the scale.”
