Maria Sharapova gave a “major announcement” in a press conference on Monday which she reveal that she failed a regulation drug test at the Australian Open earlier this year after testing positive for Meldoniun, a substance that was banned on 1 January 2016.
Watch video of her statements bellow
The tennis star has been provisionally banned from tennis after she revealed on Monday she tested positive at the Australian Open for a recently banned drug that she has been taking for 10 years for health reasons.
The drug is called meldonium, though Sharapova said she had been using it under the name of mildronate and was unaware of both the different name and the fact it is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list until she received a letter notifying her of the positive test 10 days ago. She claims she takes the drug was prescribed by her doctor for family history and Diabetic reasons. She said “I let my fans down, I let the sport down that I have been playing since the age of four and I love so deeply. I know with this I face consequences and I don’t want to end my career this way and I really hope I will be given another chance to play this game.”
She also said “For the past 10 years I have been given a medicine called mildronate by my family doctor and a few days ago after I received the ITF letter I found out that it also has another name of meldonium which I did not know. It is very important for you to understand that for 10 years this medicine was not on Wada’s banned list and I had legally been taking the medicine for the past 10 years. But on 1 January the rules had changed and meldonium became a prohibited substance which I had not known. I failed the test and I take full responsibility for it. I made a huge mistake.”
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