Simona Halep, who was recently handed a four-year suspension for doping, has announced that she will contest the decision and has made accusations against the experts from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) who analyzed her collected samples.
The ITIA, in their statement announcing Halep’s suspension, stated that an independent tribunal had suspended the former world leader for two separate violations of the Tennis Anti-Doping Program.
The first violation was for the banned substance roxadustat at the 2022 US Open, while the second was related to irregularities found in her biological passport.
In response to these accusations, Halep stated that she presented “convincing evidence in support of my defense” to the ITIA and the tribunal and raised several legitimate questions regarding the conclusions reached regarding her biological passport case.
“All tests were negative until August 29, 2022”
The athlete mentioned that throughout her nearly two decades as a professional tennis player, she has undergone hundreds of blood and urine tests to check for banned substances. “All of them were negative until August 29, 2022,” said Halep.
Halep clarified that prior to the 2022 hard court season, she changed her nutritional supplements based on the recommendation of her trusted team and physiotherapist. One of these supplements was found to be contaminated with roxadustat, without her or her team’s knowledge.
“None of the listed ingredients in these new supplements included banned substances, but now we know – and the tribunal agreed – that one of them was contaminated with roxadustat. I was tested almost weekly after my initial positive test until early 2023, and all results were negative,” said Simona Halep.
The athlete accuses two experts of changing their opinion in favor of the ITIA’s accusations after learning her identity.
Despite these pieces of evidence, the ITIA brought an ABP accusation only after their group of experts learned my identity, which caused two out of three experts to abruptly change their opinion in favor of the ITIA’s accusations. The ITIA relied solely on the opinions of these experts who analyzed only my blood parameters, which remained within the same range for over 10 years.
“This group of experts ignored the fact that no banned substance has ever been found in my blood or urine samples, with the sole exception of a low-level positive test for roxadustat on August 29, which, considering my negative test three days before the positive one, could have only been caused by accidental exposure to roxadustat,” added Simona Halep.
The announcement of Simona Halep’s four-year suspension was made on Tuesday, September 12, by the ITIA. The athlete has stated that she will appeal the suspension.
