Originally Posted by Lisa.B:
“Hopefully a reduction of some sort, Lepchenko tested positive 4 times and still had her silent ban quashed.”
The fact that Lepchenko has literally suffered
zero backlash has just astonished me tbh. I mean, are people not aware that this is the exact same thing Sharapova was taking? I know it was proved that she stopped taking it before 2016, but she was obviously taking it for performance enhancing purposes too, so why no backlash? Sharapova's a big doper and her whole career is a lie because she took meldonium for three weeks longer than Lepchenko did? It's a bit baffling to me tbh.
Originally Posted by amelia_lee:
“My feelings on the matter too. The whole excusing it away as medical was frankly, ridiculous.
I think she will get some sort of a reduction, but hope she doesn't, her time actually fits what the criteria says. She did take it deliberately, no matter if she was ignorant of the rules or not and she admitted to taking for the month of January when it was a banned substance.
On another note, my god what have they done to the AO sign? It's awful!”
Presumably you feel the same about Lepchenko then?
Originally Posted by seansnotmyname@:
“Yes, but what about the others that have got lesser sentence. Hows that realistic if it's not been done before?
It has had constant tests by WADA, they've never found anything they could call performance enhancing it is a drug that is used to prevent heart conditions in the future, this nonsense about it being for a weak heart is a media contrivance based on claims by the manufacturer. many years ago.
The tribunal said that it was an over-sight from her, they didn't say it was deliberate.
Look she did something extremely negligent, but two years seems incredibly harsh and unprecedented to me. and political to me, if WADA wasn't going after Russians, doubt Meldonium would have even been banned with no evidence other then a lot of people wer taking it.”
I've never been a fan of the whole "anti-Russian propaganda!!1!" thing that gets bandied about online a lot, but it's impossible to rule it out either. Would this have really happened to Sharapova if she'd been playing for the US? Doubt it.