Simona Halep, who was suspended for four years for doping, is preparing for her appeal to the TASS against the sentence given by ITIA, the International Tennis Integrity Agency. Gazeta Sporturilor has studied all 126 pages of the tribunal’s reasoning, which states that the athlete took the banned substance for which she was punished, roxadustat, from two sources, not just one, KETO MCT, as she claimed.
“The decision in Simona Halep’s case has two important chapters, one regarding the positive test for roxadustat, and the other discussing irregularities in the biological passport,” writes the quoted source, which extensively explains the proceedings regarding the contaminated supplement.
Thus, on October 7, 2022, Simona Halep was notified that she had failed an anti-doping test and did not contest the collection procedure. Traces of roxadustat, a banned substance in sports since the beginning of 2022, were found in her urine. It increases hemoglobin and red blood cell production.
Simona’s hearing at ITIA took place on June 28 and 29, 2023, after several postponements requested by the Agency. The tribunal consisted of Nicholas Stewart, Peter Saver, and Amani Khalifa.
Prior to this hearing, in the initial statements given in an interview with ITIA officials on October 26, 2022, Simona explained that between August 23 and 29, excluding August 24 when she did not train, she took three new supplements recommended by her team at the Muratoglu Academy, including KETO MCT, a collagen powder supplement that was later found to be contaminated with roxadustat.
Candice Gohier, her physiotherapist, recommended the three supplements after consulting with Frederic Lefebvre, former Serena Williams physiotherapist and director of the physical training department at the Mouratoglu Academy.
The athlete asked if the supplements were compliant, checked together with the physiotherapist, and also asked Patrick Mouratoglou if she could take them, to which he confirmed that they were fine and did not contain any prohibited substances.
Simona Halep stated to ITIA officials that she had never taken prohibited substances and added two reasons why she would not take roxadustat, which were classified as confidential in the case file. She also mentioned that using roxadustat around the time of surgery would have been extremely dangerous.
However, Simona did not mention in the doping form from August 29 that she was taking the three supplements recommended by Gohier. She did not mention them in the October 26 interview with ITIA either, and at subsequent hearings, she said she had forgotten to include them on the form and that the same likely happened during the interview. Nevertheless, the tribunal considered this behavior negligent, especially during the interview with ITIA.
The reasoning for Simona’s suspension reviews the statements of French specialists brought in her defense, and the conclusions indicate that, in the opinion of ITIA specialists, the athlete had another source of doping, not just the contaminated supplement recommended by the physiotherapist.
Therefore, the reasoning report states that the defense demonstrated that the supplement was contaminated with roxadustat, but the level in which it was present in the Romanian’s urine could not come solely from this source, and she must demonstrate where the rest of the substance came from. As the second source has not been identified and even though Halep claims she did not take such a substance, the tribunal cannot exonerate her.
In essence, the reasoning states that Simona Halep ingested roxadustat from two separate sources, KETO MCT and another unidentified source.
