Tennis star Jannik Sinner’s doping case is not going to have a call from the Courtroom of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) earlier than the top of the yr, the World Anti-Doping Company (WADA) confirmed.
“There shall be nothing by the top of the yr,” WADA director normal Olivier Niggli mentioned in an interview with AFP.
The Italian world primary twice examined optimistic for traces of the banned substance clostebol in March however was exonerated and allowed to hold on taking part in.
An impartial tribunal on the finish of August, requested by the Worldwide Tennis Integrity Company (ITIA) discovered that the Australian Open and US Open champion “bears no fault or negligence”.
The ITIA accepted Sinner’s rationalization that the drug entered his system when his physiotherapist used a sprig containing it to deal with a lower after which supplied therapeutic massage and sports activities remedy to the participant.
WADA have appealed the choice to clear the 23-year-old and is looking for a ban of as much as two years.
“It was thought-about within the resolution that there was no fault on the a part of Sinner. Our place is that there’s nonetheless a accountability of the athlete in relation to his entourage,” Niggli mentioned.
“So it’s this authorized level that shall be debated (earlier than CAS).
“We don’t dispute the truth that it might have been a contamination. However we imagine that the applying of the foundations doesn’t correspond to the case legislation.”
Whereas the ITIA was criticised for having revealed late the optimistic assessments of Sinner and of ladies’s world quantity two Iga Swiatek, Niggli believes that “athletes have to be protected”.
Swiatek final month accepted a one-month suspension after testing optimistic for the guts remedy trimetazidine (TMZ) in an out-of-competition pattern in August 2024.
“Personally, I believe that defending an athlete’s repute ought to be our first concern,” mentioned Niggli.
“We stay in a world the place social media is what it’s and signifies that a repute can go up in smoke in a really, very brief time.”