Simona Halep has launched a series of harsh accusations against the former world leader of the WTA from Poland, Iga Swiatek, who tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine, but was forgiven by the ITIA and received a one-month suspension, and then allowed to continue competing on the world circuit.
The Romanian champion felt extremely unjustly treated when she saw how Jannik Sinner and Iga Swiatek were handled by the ITIA in their doping cases. The athlete from Constanța received a harsh 4-year suspension, later reduced to 9 months by TAS.
The same thing happened in the case of former world leader Jannik Sinner from Italy, who didn’t even receive a suspension, although he also tested positive for a banned substance, with ITIA even publicly concealing this information, which was only revealed many months later.
Swiatek responded to Simona Halep’s accusations on a social network, through an interview given to the Polish press:
„I try to look at things from a broader perspective, because I know people need to compare such situations with others that have occurred, but the truth is that each of these cases is completely different. The process of proving innocence in such a case will also be different, and it’s hard to compare myself with Sinner, Halep, or Majchrzak, because each of us is dealing with a different issue.
I believe this is a question for ITIA, not for me, because my fate and that of others were in their hands, and they decide how each case will end. I trust that this process is objective and that everything is done in accordance with the regulations, and no one judges the player based on their position. From my perspective, I can say that this process was demanding and it was not at all certain that it would end after 2.5 months. The fact that I found this source so quickly accelerated the whole process, and the decision belonged solely to ITIA. There is no way to influence it in any way,” Iga Swiatek conveyed to TVN 24.
The Pole got off so lightly because she quickly demonstrated that the banned substance entered her body through a medication she was taking for relaxation, a superficial explanation easily accepted by the ITIA.
D.A.