With an independent tribunal ruling that world No. 1 tennis player Jannik Sinner was not at fault after testing positive twice for a banned substance in March 2024, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has announced that it is filing an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Since the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) declared in August that the 23-year-old athlete was not at fault despite testing positive for the anabolic steroid Clostebol, he has managed to avoid penalties from competition so far.
WADA is now requesting a ban of “between one and two years” for the 23-year-old Italian after stating that the ITIA’s decision “was not correct under the applicable rules”.
WADA went on to clarify in its statement that it is “not seeking a disqualification of any results, save that which has already been imposed by the tribunal of first instance”, referring to the ITIA’s ruling to deprive Sinner of the ranking points and prize money he earned at Indian Wells, where he advanced to the semi-finals.
Following this appeal, Sinner said: “We cannot control everything, no?… Obviously I’m very disappointed and also surprised by this appeal, to be honest, because we had three hearings. All three hearings came out very positively for me.”
Cause of the issue
Sinner claimed that his physiotherapist’s treatments had inadvertently contaminated the illegal drug, which was the cause of the positive test results. The two-time grand slam champion added that his physiotherapist had been treating a little wound on their own skin, not on Sinner, with an over-the-counter spray.
A statement released by Sinner’s team admitted: “His fitness trainer purchased a product, easily available over the counter in any Italian pharmacy, which he gave to Jannik’s physiotherapist to care for a cut on the physiotherapist’s finger… Jannik knew nothing of this, and his physiotherapist did not know that he was using a product containing Clostebol. … The physiotherapist treated Jannik without gloves and coupled with various skin lesions on Jannik’s body caused the inadvertent contamination.”
After conferring with specialists, an independent tribunal appointed by the ITIA accepted Sinner’s explanation, enabling him to successfully challenge the provisional ban that was in place following each positive test. Moreover, after the positive test results were made public on August’s US Open eve, Sinner stated that he had split up with fitness coach Umberto Ferrara and physiotherapist Giacomo Naldi due to the incident.
Source: CNN