# Maria Sharapova banned for two years: meldonium drug use **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 8, 2016, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897 "2016-06-08T23:54:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![blue\_infinity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_infinity/32/2817_2.png) [@blue\_infinity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blue_infinity)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/21 "2016-06-09T11:42:32Z")
The best little tidbit from the ITF report: (Dr Skalny’s instructions to Sharapova) > [@](#): > > “1 hr before competition, 2 pills of Mildronate” > “During games of special importance, you can increase your Mildronate dose to 3-4 pills (1 hr before the match). However, it is necessary to consult me on all these matters” I guess her incipient heart disease/diabetes/magnesium deficiency/whatever really flares up during those big matches. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/22 "2016-06-09T11:54:34Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I don’t think she purposefully ignored the new ban. So many great players have been banned over performance enhancing drugs. Difficult to imagine any top rated player today deliberately trying to use them. Really? Given how many great players have been banned over the years it’s difficult to imagine one NOT using performance enhancing drugs. And maybe we should just get it through our collective heads that professional athlete careers are usually quite short. Unlikely to make a comeback at 30? How about _unlikely to be playing at that level regardless at 30_. Compare to athletes dropping out 5-10 years earlier than 30 due to injuries or dropping performance. Pro athletes need to have Profession #2 lined up and ready to go by 25. And if all the top players are relying on being full of painkillers in order to perform that, too, is a sign of something deeply wrong with the sports world. Playing injured because you can’t feel the pain is why later on in life so many athletes are crippled. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/23 "2016-06-09T12:00:05Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > That’s kind of a grey area isn’t it? If it’s not banned then it’s legal. But the athlete is gaining an advantage. > > I suspect a lot of tennis players used Meldonium prior to Jan 1. They aren’t in trouble. The ones that weren’t paying attention to their mail are. Exactly. If it’s not against the rules, it’s fair game, even by the most restrictive standards. Every athlete is at least doing everything they can that’s not against the rules in order give themselves an edge. You can’t do otherwise in something so hyper-competitive. I wouldn’t even get to the “gray area” until you get to things that are technically against the rules but are not properly enforced. There’s an argument that that could possibly be considered cheating–even though the most competitive will do it. That said, ignorance of the rules is not an excuse. This is her livelihood. She has to read them. If she had trouble reading the rules in electronic form, the solution would be to tell someone and get a hard copy. It’s just a BS excuse she came up with if she got caught. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/24 "2016-06-09T13:43:02Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I suspect a lot of tennis players used Meldonium prior to Jan 1. They aren’t in trouble. The ones that weren’t paying attention to their mail are. You really should read the judgment or you are just going to make yourself look ignorant over and over and over. > [@ITF Judgement](#): > > The figures showed that Meldonium was detected in just over 1% of samples in tennis, and a number of those samples might have been given by the same player. Of the 24 samples which tested positive 5 were from Ms Sharapova. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/25 "2016-06-09T13:56:57Z")
It’s not the job of the IFT to make sure she wasn’t violating the rules. That’s the job of her coach, trainer, nutritionist (!), physiotherapist, and/or medical advisor. She employs an entire team of people who are happy to help her comply with the rules (their livelihood is on the line, too, after all.) And despite regularly disclosing a range of other substances, she chose to deliberately and repeatedly conceal this one from pretty much everyone, including a pretty straightforward form that would have been a great fail safe if she had used it. I have no idea why she did this, but this wasn’t simple ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/26 "2016-06-09T17:40:33Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > But if you are suggesting Sharapova (and other top rated players) didn’t use Meldonium because they thought it was performance enhancing, you are living in dreamland. She covered it up like hell. The absolute most you can say is she might have missed the memo about it becoming banned. There is no way she didn’t know it was performance enhancing, and didn’t take it for that reason. Yup. I’ve been rather a fan of Sharapova, grunting and all. But it strains credibility to consider her a poor victim in all of this. Two years seems fair and if she never competes at a high level again…well, I’m sure wallowing in her estimated ~$100 million fortune will help mollify her disappointment ;). ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/27 "2016-06-09T17:48:20Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > You really should read the judgment or you are just going to make yourself look ignorant over and over and over. I’m just now seeing this thread, but I read the Decision in its entirety yesterday, and I’m in complete agreement with you. Based on the apparent lies and deception that she and her representative put out there, I think she’s extremely fortunate to not have gotten the full four years. The fact that she’s now calling this “unfairly harsh” is just silly. She got out of receiving four years based on a technicality of how “intentional” is defined by the ITF. I had _some_ sympathy for her before yesterday, but the Decision relieved me of that. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2016, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/28 "2016-06-14T16:08:37Z")
[Sharapova to get expedited ruling on her appeal](http://olympics.nbcsports.com/2016/06/14/maria-sharapova-appeal-doping-ban-rio-games/). At least she (and we) won’t have to wait too long to find out whether the two years sticks or not. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897/29 "2016-10-04T14:26:34Z")
[Sharapova’s ban reduced to 15 months on appeal](http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/04/tennis/tennis-sharapova-cas-drugs/). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/maria-sharapova-banned-for-two-years-meldonium-drug-use/756897.md?page=1)