American tennis participant Varvara Lepchenko has been handed a four-year ban for doping after being provisionally suspended in August 2021.
Lepchenko examined optimistic for a banned stimulant throughout the Hungarian Grand Prix in July.
She instructed an impartial tribunal she didn’t deliberately ingest the drug and will have unknowingly taken it.
“[We found] the proof offered by the participant to be imprecise to the purpose of non-existent,” the tribunal stated.
They added: “[This is] in respect of what, when and in what doses the dietary supplements have been taken, particularly within the interval instantly previous to the optimistic take a look at.
“There may be in actual fact no proof in any respect that the dietary supplements referred to by the participant have been the supply of the prohibited substance detected.”
The ban has been backdated to August.
It’s a second doping offence for the Uzbek-born participant, who switched allegiance to the USA in 2007, however it’s being handled as her first violation for the aim of punishment as she was deemed to not have been at fault within the earlier case.
In 2016, Lepchenko was amongst plenty of athletes from numerous sports activities who examined optimistic for Meldonium, which noticed her fellow tennis participant Maria Sharapova banned.
