Maria Sharapova Faces Four-Year Ban

[mjk45]

nanarchy said:

mjk45 said:

Because it was put on the prohibited substance list for the first time , the yearly list was sent out sept 2015 to all athletes telling them that it was prohibited substance from jan 2016.

The question is why was she on a medication proscribed for  a max 4- 6 weeks for ten years.

It is NOT prescribed for a max of 4-6 weeks at all. In its most commonly used form for boosting stamina it is prescribed for 4-6 weeks in "apparently" much higher doses than she was taking. Many medicenes are prescribed for different lengths of time depending on what they are treating and according to her and her team it wasn't to boost stamina.

Personally it sounds like their is enough mitigating evidence to suggest her intention wasn't to cheat so she should probably get a reasonably lenient suspension/fine.

what else are they going to say, and  yes I should have said the standard prescription is a maximum of 4-6 weeks ,  but there have been doctors who have dismissed her reasons for taking the drug and I'm sure she could find someone to take a different view not that it matters because it all happened in the past. The trouble with these matters is we might never know her reasons for good or ill , even if she was doing it for a performance reason the worst you could say is it might be seen by some as immoral ,  but you definetly couldn't  say she was doing anything  illegal , that changed when she failed this test because once a drug becomes prohibited . how long doesn't matter 20 years or 20 weeks it's all the same  and it has to be that way otherwise you get excuses ans people looking for loop holes. that's why the rule states that each athlete is solely responsible for what goes into there body .

Poklanes links in this thread give a good insight into the drug.