In 2016 this tennis player booked a hotel ballroom to announce her own failed drug test, saying she had taken the same prescribed substance for ten years and had not read the email telling her it had just been banned.
The full story
At a Los Angeles press conference on 7 March 2016, Maria Sharapova announced that she had failed a drug test at the Australian Open for meldonium, which WADA had added to its prohibited list with effect from 1 January 2016. She said she had taken it since 2006 on medical advice and had missed the notification. An International Tennis Federation tribunal imposed a two-year suspension in June 2016. On 4 October 2016 the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced it to fifteen months, backdated to 26 January 2016, finding an anti-doping rule violation with 'some degree of fault' but no significant fault, and expressly that she was not an intentional doper. She returned in April 2017 and retired in February 2020.
The clues we handed out
— The substance was meldonium, added to the prohibited list on 1 January that year.
— Her sport's governing body suspended her for two years. She appealed.
— The Court of Arbitration for Sport cut the ban to fifteen months, finding she was at some degree of fault but was not an intentional doper.
— She had won five Grand Slam titles, the first of them at Wimbledon aged seventeen.
— Initials: M.S.
How this case played
ALLEGEDLY* edition No. 89. Three strikes to name Maria Sharapova, with a free clue
unlocked after every miss.
*A blind item you can check. Every puzzle is drawn from the public record —
court records, official rulings, and moments that unfolded on live television — and the
records are linked above. Allegedly.
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