Maria Sharapova and meldonium – a curious case indeed
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Serena Williams says Maria Sharapova has shown courage and heart in her handling of her failed drug test at the Australian Open.
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The Maria Sharapova thing?
Where do we even begin?
I say, when in doubt, try channelling the collective response of the people at large, and so I do, on your behalf:
For her announcement simply does not fit with other drugs scandals in sport. As you know, by now there are several well-known categories, so common they are clichés.
An iconic sports superstar, who everyone just knows is as hot as mustard, is finally proved to be so. His busting – proving he has flecks of urine in his performance-enhancing drugs – draws a gasp of complete non-astonishment from coast-to-coast.
An athlete from the Eastern bloc we’ve never heard of, in a power sport we don’t care about, gets a photo and five paragraphs, four pages in, for failing a drugs test in RatSakIstan. We forget the details, two seconds after we’ve read it, remembering only the photo that ran with the story showed she had a moustache that Merv Hughes would be proud of. (And cue the old joke. The East German shot putter complains of hair on her chest. The doctor says how far does it go down? „Down to my balls, and that’s another thing I want to talk to you about.”)
Involves a stunning revelation that an entire team has been systematically doped.
Stunning news, yes, but as he’s an Australian it is obvious to all that he is quite innocent, and we can take him at his word that it was all his Mum’s fault.
Well-known athlete in popular sport, fails drug test but comes out with excuse that would make Warnie proud: „I musta been eating contaminated beef, just riddled with Clenbuterol!” Yup, and if you pull the other leg, it plays Jingle Bells.
But … the Sharapova model model? It has to be, friends, the most unheard of thing we’ve ever heard of!
For her, the most famous, accomplished and wealthy female athlete in the world, the very face of women’s tennis there were:
Precisely no suspicions beforehand, and no-one saw it coming.
Once we did find out, there was no great ah-HA moment, where everyone said: „So that’s why she’s always been so damn powerful/fast/agile/tireless.”
Instead of going through a whole list of transparently absurd excuses, she broke the news herself, ‘fessed up and gave full disclosure. She didn’t say let’s wait for the B Test, she just threw down her weapons, and her racquets, and came out with her hands up.
Instead of promising to fight the legal process with every ounce of oomph she has in her, she says simply, she will accept whatever ban she is given.
She simply says she’s been taking meldonium – said to increase circulation – for all of the last 10 years that was on no banned list until January 1, 2016, and when she continued to take it through the Australian Open, she subsequently and not surprisingly failed the drug test. When asked why she still kept taking it, despite being told by an email from WADA that it was banned, she simply said: „I didn’t click on that link.” And nor, apparently, did anyone in her large entourage, including the medical folk and managerial types whose job it is to keep on top of precisely that kind of stuff. (You’re right. Time for another large, collective, WTFF????)
Her final break-the-mould moment came when she provided for the first time in the history of the world at a press conference where an athlete is dealing with a drug scandal, some humour. When asked if she was going to stand down, she simply replied: „If I was going to announce my retirement, it wouldn’t be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet.”
Quite.
I repeat. We are a long way from Kansas, Dorothy, in a part of the sports world never traversed before.
But, having thus established that this is a story without precedent, the next question is what now? What should tennis do with her?
I say, the obvious.
Of course it has to suspend her. If not for the four years that is the maximum for such an offence of ingesting a performance-enhancing substance, at least for a bit more than the twelve months she is publicly hoping. One way or another she not only has to pay the piper, but be seen to be paying him. None of the facts fit a malevolent drug cheat who knowingly rorted the system for years to get an unfair advantage. Nor do they fit someone who really did just choose the wrong shampoo or cough medicine.
The whole thing is somewhere in between, and so should the penalty be. She has already suffered excruciating embarrassment, and huge financial penalties through the loss of sponsorship – guaranteed to hit her where it hurts, right in the middle of her $400 million fortune.
One mitigating factor is her candour. Would that all those who fail a drug test ‘fess up in exactly the same manner.
Another mitigating circumstance is that the drug in question is said to increase circulation specifically to the brain. „Under the circumstances, Your Honour, I submit that this DEMONSTRABLY had no effect on my client!”
I say, suspension for two years, with six months suspended.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/the-fitz-files/maria-sharapova-and-meldonium–a-curious-case-indeed-20160309-gnesci.html#ixzz42PXpcooG
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