Maria Sharapova’s Failed Drug Test Spin Won’t Help Save Tarnished Image

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: March 8, 2016

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Maria Sharapova admitted she's been using a performance-enhancing drug for the past 10 years. Yet her fans and many in the tennis community believe this will have no lasting impact on her career.

They're wrong. Regardless of whether you buy her explanation for why she failed a drug test, there are too many questions surrounding her long-time use of this now-banned PED.

Today, Sharapova announced that she failed a drug test for the use of meldonium, a substance that was added to the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list earlier this year.

During the press conference, streamed live via MariaSharapova.com, she told a room full of reporters that she took "full responsibility" for the failed test.



"It's very important for you to understand for 10 years this medicine was not on WADA's banned list and I had been legally taking the medicine for the past 10 years. But on January 1, the rules had changed and meldonium became a prohibited substance, which I had not known."

Defenders and sympathizers took to Twitter immediately.



Martina Navratilova and Ryan Harrison called it an "honest mistake." James Blake tweeted how "classy" Sharapova was in her handling of the press conference.



Hold up. Wait a minute. In this post-Lance Armstrong era, people are still willing to give a top athlete the benefit of the doubt?

A Russian athlete?

Russian athletes flunking drug tests is nothing new. The entire Russian track and field team has been suspended from international competition and could be banned from the 2016 Olympics if it doesn't clean up its act.

If Sharapova were a Russian sprinter instead of a media darling and marketing icon, would people be so quick to accept her explanation? Especially considering the surrounding circumstances?



Sharapova claimed she began taking the drug under the care of a fam...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Tennis

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