By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday November 28, 2024
The five-time major champion tested positive for trimetazidine, which came from contaminated melatonin.
Photo Source: Getty
Iga Swiatek has accepted a one-month ban after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition sample in August.
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The five-time major champion was provisionally suspended on September 12, and missed three events during that time. She will now serve the following eight days of her suspension and be reinstated on December 4.
The ITIA accepted that Swiatek's positive test was caused by the contamination of a regulated non-prescription medication (melatonin), manufactured and sold in Poland that the player had been taking for jet lag and sleep issues, and that the violation was therefore not intentional.
According to the ITIA, Swiatek’s llevel of fault was considered to be at the lowest end of the range for ‘No Significant Fault or Negligence’.
It has been a year of high-profile drug suspensions, with World No.1 Jannik Sinner also undergoing a provisional suspension and two successful appeals for the banned substance clostebol.
Like Swiatek’s case, the provisional bans, and appeals, were kept from the general public until the case had been decided. News of Sinner’s case broke just before the 2024 US Open, with the Italian taking questions in a packed press conference just over two weeks before raising the trophy in Flushing Meadows.
WADA (world anti-doping agency) is currently appealing the findings, and seeking a one-year ban for the Italian.
Swiatek, currently ranked No.2, will also forfeit prize money from the Cincinnati Open, the tournament she played directly following the test. The 23-year-old Pole launched an appeal on 22 September, saying that a regulated non-prescription melatonin medicine, manufactured and regulated in Poland, was contaminated with TMZ and was the source of the positive test.
“Once the source of the TMZ had been established, it became clear that this was a highly unusual instance of a contaminated product, which in Poland is a regulated medicine,” said ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse.
“However, the product does not have the same designation globally, and the fact that a product is a regulated medication in one country cannot of itself be sufficient to avoid any level of fault. Taking into account the nature of the medication, and all the circumstances, it does place that fault at the lowest end of the scale.”