The reasons that led to the disqualification last March of Simona Halep, winner of Roland Garros in 2018 and Wimbledon in 2019, former number 1 on the women's tennis circuit, suspended for 9 months for "careless use of a contaminated supplement" have been made public by the Court of Arbitration for Sport .
A sentence that could worry Jannik Sinner, but with the case of the South Tyrolean there are analogies and also strong differences .
The CAS in the ruling emphasizes that the supplement was taken by the Romanian on the advice of her personal physiotherapist "who is not a doctor or a clinician" . The judges in the ruling wonder " why in an environment of such high professionalism issues related to possible problems with anti-doping are entrusted to people who have no experience in this sector ". The athlete, they emphasize, "should have understood the limits of her physiotherapist's qualifications and the fact that a tournament was being played in the United States, on a continent far from hers, cannot justify the failure to consult a specialist and the entrusting of such a delicate task to a person without the necessary medical skills".
So far the analogies, or rather the faults of the personal physiotherapist, just as it was Sinner's physiotherapist who took Trofodermin (ointment containing Clostebol) and massaged the world number 1 without gloves , contaminating him. The Tas has repeatedly underlined the fact that it is inconceivable that an athlete at the top of the sport delegates the use of products at risk of positivity to people who do not have medical skills such as physiotherapists or coaches.
Then there are the huge differences . First of all the decision of the Itia, which acquitted Sinner but had even sentenced Simona Halep to 4 years for the use of Roxadustat , which she had tested positive for in a test that took place in 2022, after the US Open. The Tas partially exonerated her (the ban went from 4 years to 9 months), but accusing her of . True, . But , it was passed to him by mistake through a massage. Finally, the .
