Title is misleading. The drug she has been taking for 10 years as prescribed by her doctor was only added to the banned list in January.

Please don't let facts get in the way of the doping moralists.....

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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 do like how she took full responsibility for it in admitting that it was up to her to see whether it had been added to the banned substance list. Usually you hear athletes saying "I don't know how this could have happened" or "I didn't realize what I was taking"

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"You can never win or lose if you don't run the race." - Richard Butler

Serena would not have been so gracious

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

This. Change the title.

It clearly wasn't intentional "doping". Her results in January clearly weren't aided by her "doping". This is simply a case of her prescribed drugs having 2 names, and a bit of negligence on her behalf of not checking the updated list

There are some indications that lots of endurance athletes with doctors pushing all the legal boundaries have been using this for a long time. I would think that when the news that it would be added to the banned list came out, it would have caught just about everyone's attention in those circles, but it seems Sharapova was not paying attention. I do like how she takes responsibility, but I am not sure I buy the argument that she was taking it because she was prescribed it because she was getting sick a lot and had low magnesium levels. Since it was not illegal, why not just come out and say she was taking it for a performance benefit? It's typically prescribed for angina and myocardial infarction which she is not claiming she suffered from.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

If something is legal, what business do any of us have why they are taking it?

Now, here again, a professional missing a change? What type of "experts" does folks have around them?

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

How can you get caught in tennis is a bigger question.
The testing in tennis is a joke.

By the way, the substance is known as a PED.

Tennis players get tested??

You trying to say Sarena is using something?

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

I read the subject line and thought to myself, "How many posts until someone tries to turn a thread on Sharapova into an opportunity to editorialize on a Williams sister?"

Answer: 5

A number of other athletes have tested positive for the drug since Jan. 1: Abeba Aregawi (Ethiopian born, Swedish nationality, 1500 world champion) Eduard Vorganov (Russian cyclist) EndeShaw Negesse (Ethiopian marathoner) Ekaterina Bobrova (Russian ice dancer) Olga Abramova (Ukranian biathlete).

who knew so many top aerobic athletes had cardiovascular problems!

on the bright side, only 1 of them is a cyclist so it shows other sports do actually do some testing, even tennis! conspiracy theorists could however point out that they're targeting an eastern europe drug, not catching any of the "good guys" from the west ;)

only reason i see to believe that any of these people have genuine need for the drug is that if you they being dodgy you'd expect they would monitor the annual WADA list changes if they had half a brain (or a dodgy doctor with half a brain, you'd have to be a complete idiot to take drugs from a doctor who has less than half a brain). of course there is another explanation for this situation...

my opinion on this is the same as for chris froome and his drugs for asthma etc: even if you have a genuine medical condition you shouldn't be taking drugs with a notable performance enhancing effect and competing. froome may have asthma which i don't, such is the luck of genetics etc. i happen not to have been blessed with the engine he has, am i allowed to take drugs to correct that?

Might be, but it's pretty suspicious that she's taking a drug that's prescribed to heart failure patients which also happens to be pretty popular with other busted endurance athletes: https://jakegshelley.wordpress.com/...elodoniummildronate/

I don't buy her schtick for one second. She doped. Not "doped." Doped.

It was intentional though, the drug was added to the banned substance list because people were abusing it and gaining a competitive advantage.

Lots of logical fail here....asthma drugs don't provide any performance benefit. If you don't have asthma, they don't do anything for you. But since asthma drugs don't require a TUE, you are free to use them just as Froome does.

As for the "genetics" comment, let's look at a logical extension of that logic....if your "genetics" don't include perfect vision and you require glasses to see correctly, should you be allowed to use glasses in a race? Your logic says "Sorry, no dice...such is the luck of genetics."

Sounds kinda dumb, doesn't it?

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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

No you're not allowed to that.

And the implied equivalence to treating asthma is spurious.

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Doping or not, you must admit Serena is notoriously cranky

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

X2

I keep wondering how long before caffeine is officially categorized as a PED. Amateur and professional athletes talk openly about it being a PED. Hell it is even marketed as one by a professional runner: http://getrungum.com/. I'm pretty sure that "maximize your performance" is the same as saying "enhance your performance".

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

Whatever the performance benefits and whatever her reasons where for taking Melodium in the past, she's only been doping for two months.

The fact that she did poorly is not proof of anything. Many pro athletes are pushing all kinds of doping boundaries today through the off-label use of certain drugs. When WADA clues into it and puts the drugs on the list tomorrow, I will not feel sorry for athletes who've chosen this course of action.

How many 30 year-old people do you know to be on Mildronate because there's a history of heart trouble in the family?

Can any cardiologists out there tell us how frequent the use of similar drugs are for non heart patients who have a family history of cardiac trouble?

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AndyF
bike geek