By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep’s four-year ban for doping has been reduced to nine months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The former Wimbledon champion tested positive for the blood-boosting drug Roxadustat at the US Open in 2022 and was handed the long ban last September. Halep appealed to Cas and, following a hearing last month, the court has dramatically reduced the Romanian’s suspension.
“The CAS Panel has unanimously determined that the four-year period of ineligibility imposed by the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Independent Tribunal is to be reduced to a period of ineligibility of nine (9) months starting on 7 October 2022, which period expired on 6 July 2023,” CAS said in a statement.
She was also charged with another doping offence last year due to irregularities in her athlete biological passport (ABP), a method designed to monitor different blood parameters over time to reveal potential doping.
Halep had vigorously denied the charges against her.
“Having carefully considered all the evidence put before it, the Cas Panel determined that Ms Halep had established, on the balance of probabilities, that the roxadustat entered her body through the consumption of a contaminated supplement which she had used in the days shortly before 29 August 2022,” it said.
“The roxadustat, as detected in her sample, came from that contaminated product.
“As a result, the CAS Panel determined that Ms Halep had also established, on the balance of probabilities, that her anti-doping rule violations were not intentional.
“Although the CAS Panel found that Ms Halep did bear some level of fault or negligence for her violations, as she did not exercise sufficient care when using the Keto MCT supplement, it concluded that she bore no significant fault or negligence.”
Halep, who has earned £32.2m in career prize money, is free to return to the WTA Tour after the nine-month ban was backdated.
She was charged with two offences by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which is responsible for testing within the sport, on 7 October 2022 and has not played since.