Former tennis world number one Simona Halep has taken a key step towards clearing her name and lifting her suspension from competing.
The 31-year-old two-time Grand Slam winner is provisionally suspended after testing positive for the anti-anaemia drug Roxadustat at the US Open earlier this year. The Romanian star said she felt "completely confused and betrayed" by the news after the International Tennis Integrity Association confirmed her suspension.
But Halep, who won Wimbledon in 2019, has now reportedly taken a major step towards overturning the suspension by identifying that the substance came from a 'contaminated food supplement'.
Cristian Jura, a Romanian judge serving with the Court of Arbitration for Sport told ProSport : “It seems that the method by which Roxadustat entered the athlete’s body has been identified, namely by ingesting a contaminated food supplement.
“Contaminated product is a product that contains a prohibited substance, without this being specified on the product label or in information accessible through a reasonable search on the Internet.
“The athlete is still at this moment between the lifting of the suspension, i.e. the removal of any sanctions, and the four-year suspension from sports activity. By presenting solid samples, it could show that the food supplement is produced on exactly the same production line as the medicine that has the active substance Roxadustat is produced, and thus the contamination has occurred."
It is believed that Halep identified the source of the Roxadustat in supplements she had been taking with the substance found in the supplement 'without proper labelling'.
Roxadustat is a prescribed medicine which has been shown to increase oxygen intake. For Halep's suspension to be lifted she needs to meet two conditions in the World Anti-Doping Code. Firstly it needs to be established how the substance got into Halep's body, which she appears to have done. Next the star needs 'prove lack of guilt and negligence'.
Jura added: "The athlete or other person must prove that Simona did not know or suspect and could not reasonably have known or suspected, even by exercising the most careful caution, that she used or was administered prohibited substances or that he used prohibited methods.
“Procedurally, there are several stages. First, there’s a preliminary hearing before the International Tennis Integrity Agency. At this stage it is possible to lift the athlete’s provisional suspension, taking into account the evidence that she ingested a contaminated supplement.
"Just as it is possible to lift the provisional suspension, so it can be maintained, very much depends on the evidence.”
Halep immediately defended herself after her suspension was confirmed. She said: "Today begins the hardest match of my life: a fight for the truth. I have been notified that I have tested positive for a substance called Roxadustat in an extremely low quantity, which came as the biggest shock of my life.
"Throughout my whole career, the idea of cheating never even crossed my mind once, as it is totally against all values I have been educated with. Facing such an unfair situation, I feel completely confused and betrayed.
"I will fight until the end to prove that I never knowingly took any prohibited substance and I have faith that sooner or later, the truth will come out."
