Maria Sharapova has finally been handed her punishment for testing positive for the banned drug Meldonium earlier this year – a two-year suspension, effective immediately and backdated to January.
BREAKING: Maria Sharapova receives ban of two years, backdated to January 2016.
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) June 8, 2016
The positive test caused Nike to suspend their relationship with Sharapova. She was reportedly warned about the ban on the drug five times, and Russia’s tennis chief called the ban “a load of nonsense“.
In the International Tennis Federation’s announcement of Sharapova’s suspension, it was noted that Sharapova had been taking Mildronate, the brand name of Meldonium, for ten years and wasn’t aware that the active ingredient was recently added to the ITF’s prohibited list.
Sharapova released a statement on Facebook shortly after the announcement, vowing to fight her suspension.
Maria Sharapova
Maria Sharapova. 15,454,585 likes · 226,690 talking about this. This is my Official Facebook Page Follow me at https://twitter.com/MariaSharapova
Here’s the key part of that statement, in which Sharapova calls the suspension “unfairly harsh”.
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. I will immediately appeal the suspension portion of this ruling to CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Sharapova didn’t compete in the French Open, which was completed over the weekend. The suspension will (obviously) knock her out of action for the next two years, but even if her suspension is overturned, her appeal will likely still be pending during Wimbledon (which begins in a matter of weeks) and possibly even during the US Open near the end of the summer.
