Five-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month suspension after testing positive for the banned drug trimetazidine, a heart drug known as TMZ, the International Tennis Integrity Agency said Thursday. It was announced on .
Swiatek failed an out-of-competition drug test in August, but the ITIA said the result was unintentional and that the over-the-counter drug melatonin he was taking for jet lag and sleep problems was contaminated. I accepted her explanation that it was the cause.
The ITIA said her level of negligence was determined to be “at the low end of the range without gross negligence or negligence”.
This is the second high-profile doping case in the tennis world in recent years. No. 1 in the rankings, Jannik Sinner, failed two steroid tests in March, but was cleared in August, just before the U.S. Open, and continued on to play in the U.S. Open. He won his second Grand Slam title this season.
Swiatek, a 23-year-old from Poland, was ranked No. 1 in the world for most of the past two seasons but is now No. 2. She won her fifth major at Roland Garros in June, winning bronze at the tournament. The Paris Olympics will be held in early August.
TMZ is Incident involving 23 Chinese swimmers Those who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2021 but remained eligible.
Swiatek formally acknowledged the anti-doping rule violation on Wednesday and accepted the punishment.
She has already been provisionally suspended from September 22 to October 4, and missed three tournaments – the Korean Open, China Open and Wuhan Open during the hard court swing in Asia after the US Open.
This interim ban ended when her appeal showed that her test results were due to contaminated melatonin.
The final agreement was for a one-month suspension, so she would serve the remaining eight days without a game and be cleared to return to play on Dec. 4.
Swiatek was also fined for $158,944 in prize money he won for reaching the semifinals of the Cincinnati Open in August, shortly after he tested positive.
“Once the source of TMZ was discovered, it became clear that this was a highly unusual case of contamination of a product that is a controlled medicine in Poland. However, this product does not have the same designation worldwide. “The mere fact that a drug is regulated in a country is not sufficient to avoid any level of negligence,” said ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse.
“Given the nature of the drug and all the circumstances, its deficiencies are at the lowest level,” Moorhouse said. “This case is an important reminder to tennis players of the strict liability nature of the World Anti-Doping Code and the importance of players carefully considering the use of supplements and drugs.”
