🎾JANNIK SINNER’S DOPING SAGA: PART 4
Let’s take a moment to focus on the high-profile doping-cases from the past that show some relevant similarities to the Sinner’s case.
✖️# 1 SARA ERRANI & CONTAMINATED TORTELLINI✖️
🎾 It will be nice to start with another Italian player with a slight doping episode, so let’s highlight the case of Sara Errani (CAS 2017/A/5301).
🎾Her doping story started on February 16th, 2017, when Errani underwent an out of competition doping control at her family home. The sample contained a prohibited substance in the family of Hormones and Metabolic Modulators - letrozole.
✖️RELEVANT FACTS✖️
🎾 Errani didn’t contest the presence of the prohibited substance, but denied an intentional ingestion and explained how it landed in her body: according to her argumentation the source of the contamination was medication taken by her mother, which she used to store on the counter space in the kitchen. How did it happen? The medication somehow fell into the family meal her mom has prepared. Tortellini containing letrozole were then unfortunately consumed by the entire family, including Sara.
✖️DECISION OF THE INDEPENDENT TRIBUNAL✖️
🎾 The independent tribunal of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) stated that it is more likely than not, how letrozole entered Errani’s body and therefore, that the degree of fault is at the lower end of the scale.
🎾The independent tribunal imposed a period of ineligibility of 2 months and disqualified the results achieved from 16.02.2017 to 7.06.2017.
✖️CASE DEVELOPMENT✖️
🎾 Nado Italia (National Anti-Doping Organisation) and Errani filed appeals to the CAS and challenged different elements of the first-instance decision. Nado Italia was seeking a period of ineligibility between 2 and 24 months; Errani sought to overturn the disqualification of the results achieved in the period of 16.02 - 7.06.2017.
✖️CAS DECISION✖️
🎾 Errani’s appeal was dismissed. Not the lowest, but normal degree of fault or negligence was found and period of ineligibility increased to 10 months.
All competitive results obtained between 16.02.2017 and 6.06.2017 were disqualified, with all resulting consequences including forfeiture of all medals, titles, ranking points and prize money.
✖️IMPORTANT CAS FINDINGS FROM SINNER’S CASE PERSPECTIVE✖️
🎾 „The Athlete’s responsibility includes that she is responsible for the behaviour of her entourage, be it her coaches, medical staff etc. or (...) members of her family living in the same house and, in particular, her mother who was preparing the food which was consumed by the whole family (…).“
🎾 "The Athlete’s mother was a pharmacist and must have known that medication contained letrozole."
🎾 "She was aware or must have been aware of the doping warning on the back of the Femara box"!
✖️CONCLUSIONS✖️
🎾Independent Tribunal: period of ineligibility of 2 months + results disqualification
🎾CAS: ⬆️increased period of ineligibility to 10 months + results disqualification