Meldonium: Sharapova gets Wada lifeline

Maria Sharapova could benefit from a partial WADA amnesty on meldonium – the prohibited substance which triggered her bombshell news conference in March.

Sharapova is only one of more than 150 athletes, a high proportion of them Russian, who have tested positive for the substance since it joined the banned list on Jan 1. But the WADA statement says that “a finding of no fault or negligence” could now be made in certain circumstances.

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This shift in position stems from research suggesting that traces of meldonium stay in the body for longer than they had previously realised. A notice to stakeholders said that “long term urinary excretions … can persist for a number of weeks and [trace elements] for a few months”.

This puts WADA in a weaker position with regard to athletes who provided positive tests in the early weeks of 2016 (Sharapova’s test was taken on Jan 25), and also with regard to tests showing a low concentration of meldonium. In either case, the defendant could potentially argue that they took the substance before the end of 2015, and thus before it joined the banned list.

 

 

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