The 3 stated clinical uses of the drug are for heart disease, diabetes, and magnesium deficiency.

She said she has....heart disease, diabetes, and magnesium deficiency.

The drug seems practically made for her!

Since when? And how? That's the first I heard of it.

Sharapova used meldonium for ten years (not the 4-6 weeks recommended on the label) for ergogenic effects (rather than heart problems) in a country in which it's not legally available. She should have come right out and said "it was a legal PED, and I missed the memo that it was to be banned."

She kinda said both....her official statement was that "there were signs of diabetes"....whatever that means....and that there was a family history of it.

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Does any of this say when the notification went out? Its not like an email went out Dec 31st and they started testing Jan 1st... Is it 6 months? a year?

**edit** ah, the email was from December. So, next question is how long this would take to clear your system... seems odd that they would notify about a change and start testing in less than a month.

It got announced around October 2015 I believe

There's Type I and Type II diabetes, I assume by early onset she's talking about Type I. It would be very unusual for someone as lean and fit as she is to have developed Type II diabetes at all, let alone in her 20's.

Type I is an autoimmune disease, not sure how this drug would protect someone from that.

It's not used for diabetes. That's a smoke cloud.

Odd that people feeling sorry for Sharapova argue both that it was only banned lately and that her use was somehow legitimate. It wasn't. It may not have been banned, but clearly she took it for ergonomic benefit. It was in the "not yet banned" category that every user has to actively seek out. The only remarkable thing is that she and others were dumb enough to get caught.

It makes little sense that she would have the sort of heart disease this drug appears to be used to treat. Young people with heart disease typically either have a congenital condition of some sort or a problem with arrythmias.

The most likely explanation is she is full of shit and was taking a drug that wasn't banned because she hoped to get some performance gains. She should have just said that instead of this (almost certain) nonsense.

It should be easy to suss out, like asking her for the cardiologists, endocrinologists, etc. that have been treating her for these conditions all these years. Doesn't she live in the US?

Wait....wut?

I don't think anyone here has said they feel "sorry" for Sharapova. You can slice it any way you want, but until January 1 of thsi year, her use of the drug was "legitimate"....at least in terms of it being allowed. Personally, I think her "medical reasons" for using the drug are pretty thin, but regardless, it was not illegal to use at the time, so she therefore did not dope or do anything wrong.

Her use after January 1 is clearly a violation of the rules and ignorance of the new rules is no excuse. She should be punished accordingly.

Do I think she took the drug for performance benefits? Yes. Do I think she cheated? No, at least not until January 1, 2016.

I really don't understand why this is so hard for some to understand.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I'd say there's a reasonable chance a lot of people would see what she did as wrong, even if not against the rules, otherwise she wouldn't be making up these stories of illness to explain the drugs use.

Kind of like underage drinking, but reverse. It was illegal but one X day it suddenly becomes legal.

I had a roommate that was working a camp job in Canada, to get his work visa they ran a background check that showed 2 arrests for underage consumptions. He had to write a letter about how he would never commit these crimes again. His initial response was "what I did is no longer a crime."

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I understand that very well. However, I find it ridiculous to try to validate her drug use by pretending her PED of choice is an appropriate treatement for diabetes. It's not. So why pretend it is?

For that matter, if she hadn't hidden her (legal) use of meldonium as a PED for ten years maybe someone would have warned her that it was to be banned.

WADA announces each September both the updated prohibited list that takes effect from 1 January the next year, and the substances being placed on the monitoring list for the following year.

This drug was notified as being placed on 2015 monitoring list in Sep 2014, and on the 2016 prohibited list in Sep 2015. These are not hidden changes, it's one of the biggest notifications WADA does each year, and it's reported on and disseminated by ADAs worldwide, as well as some sports federations, as well as reported in the media so interested in these things.

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i will assume you are talking about Sharapova, since I am validating no such thing nor am I pretending otherwise.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Semantics. You said "....she did not dope or do anything wrong."

She didn't dope prior to Jan 1. By the definition of Prohibited Substances or Prohibited Methods.

Doing anything wrong, however, is a value judgment. If she received a prescription drug without a valid clinical reason stated by the regulatory body that approved the drug, and for the sole purpose of performance enhancement, that's, in my book, not good behavior for an athlete. It also involves prescription fraud. Which isn't under the authority of WADA, but is also, in my book, "bad."

If I was a coach and one of my athletes was doing that, I'd say, "Don't do that, douchbag. You're being a total asshat. That's wrong." So I have a hard time saying that Sharapova didn't do anything wrong (prior to Jan 1).

I realize there's a vast gray area out there, and probably a huge % of pro and age group athletes dabble in the gray area, from caffeine Gu, to recently banned things like huffing Noble gases, to darker shit like off-label use of prescription drugs with unknown effects at the other end.

And it's a judgment call on which of those things are "wrong." We all have our own line. My line is I don't do anything that I feel I'd ever feel the urge to lie about.

Well done snipping my quote....I specifically said prior to Jan. 1, but you conveniently left that part when you quoted me, but then added it in your post, as if I had never mentioned it. Seems a touch disingenuous.

According to WADA and doping regulations, prior to Jan 1, she did not dope or do anything wrong. Period. There is no debate to this. Those were the rules.

I find it humorous that people are up in arms over this situation but also say "wow...great UA ad with Michael Phelps". This is a commercial that show him sleeping in a hypobaric chamber, a device specifically designed to boost performance. Did I miss your outrage or moral indignation on that thread?

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I explicitly acknowledged Jan 1. You included it in your quote of me. Not sure what you're all fired up about.




She did not dope (Jan 1, blah blah). It's certainly debatable whether she did something wrong. I think we can acknowledge that WADA is generally behind the dopers, e.g. it takes them some number of years to catch up. Often decades.

Personally if someone on my cycling team is abusing prescription drugs for performance purposes, I'm either kicking him off, or leaving myself. But that's just me. Maybe you think it's just part of training, and any good athlete should canvas obscure drugs approved in Eastern European countries for possible performance benefit, and then convince a Dr. in that country to prescribe them for a manufactured ailment. I call that "wrong." Call me "outraged" or "up in arms" if you want. But I'm really just soberly calling it "wrong." If you think that exploiting WADA's years-to-decade-long gap in identifying such drugs and developing tests for them is a valid avenue to pursue peak performance, then I think I can get you a job on a ProTour team. :) Were you on EPO pre-ban - you could have made some serious hay back then as an EPOed-up age grouper! . Though you also have to comfortable with effectively doing human experimentation. And some shit formerly in this category, like AICAR, appears like it could be really good at promoting cancer.



Hyperbaric you mean? (unless he's really on to something new) Gray area, like my last post. Like I said, we all have our lines. Some people think those should have been banned. I know some people who use them, and I don't mind. I don't think it's as bad as fraudulent use of prescription drugs.

Well, apparently your line is drawn by a toddler with a crayon.....I don't really see a difference between a chamber and using a drug that is not banned. Both are artificial means to boost performance.

That is why my line is clear and defined...what does the rule book say? Not prohibited? Then you are doing nothing wrong.

(That does not mean that I therefore endorse such actions...just that I accept that they are legal)

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I don't think we're actually that far off- just talking past each other. I just took "did nothing wrong" to mean you're totally fine with anyone doing those things vs. just an acceptance of WADA-legality. But apparently that wasn't really your intent.

I use this Venn diagram to help clarify such semantics:

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Latest update states she was warned on 5 seperate occasions about the use of this drug

Seriously? Phelps' hyperbaric chamber is in a commercial -- he's totally open about it. For 10 years Sharapova hid the fact that she was smuggling an unapproved prescription drug into the country to use as a PED. Apparently, somehow they discerned a difference.

well, not exactly. you are aware that the drug wasn't approved in the us? she lives in the us so i'm assuming she was in possession of it while in the us (notice she never said that she only takes it when she is in latvia), which in and of itself is illegal. i find it humorous how clueless people are here.

i tent is 100% legal in all 50 states. illegally importing a drug that isn't approved in the united states and then taking that drug is not legal. it's quite sad that you think they are the equivalent.