posted on Mar, 14 2016 @ 02:51 AM
I think that this whole case is a matter of "much ado about nothing." But unfortunately it's a "nothing" with huge consequences for Sharapova. I'm
inclined to believe her version of events. After all, taking a drug that's on that list of banned substances always poses certain risks, right? So why
would anyone take such a risk with something that hardly has any performance enhancing effects? If you're willing to take that risk you would at least
do it with something that produces the desired effect, right?
Plus - and this is from a post of Maria's on Facebook page:
"On December 18, I received an email with the subject line “Player News” on it. It contained a newsletter on a website that contained tons of
information about travel, upcoming tournaments, rankings, statistics, bulletin board notices, happy birthday wishes, and yes, anti-doping information.
On that email, if a player wanted to find the specific facts about medicine added to the anti-doping list, it was necessary to open the “Player
News” email, read through about a dozen unrelated links, find the “Player Zone” link, enter a password, enter a username, read a home screen
with more than three dozen different links covering multiple topics, find the “2016 Changes to Tennis Anti-Doping Program and Information” link,
click on it and then read a page with approximately three dozen more links covering multiple anti-doping matters. Then you had to click the correct
link, open it up, scroll down to page two and that’s where you would find a different name for the medication I was taking.
In other words, in order to be aware of this “warning”, you had to open an email with a subject line having nothing to do with anti-doping, click
on a webpage, enter a password, enter a username, hunt, click, hunt, click, hunt, click, scroll and read. I guess some in the media can call that a
warning. I think most people would call it too hard to find."
That almost sounds like wada setting it up so that athletes wouldn't find that content about Meldonium. And it seems to have worked. Last I heard 99
athletes from all kinds of sports have already been caught for taking this product. If they had just send an email to everyone headlined, "Warning:
Meldonium banned in 2016" they probably would have had none. Just a bit of scumbaggery on the part of wada imo.