The ITIA Report on Simona Halep

[meganfernandez]

More on this Dr Alvarez of "Pamela" fame. This was posted by a fan on another site.

Alvarez submitted two reports of his Matrix methodology on the Keto MCT samples. The second report showed significantly lower concentrations of Roxadustat than the first report. He did this to try and prove to the Tribunal that Eichner’s SMRTL methodology wasn’t detecting Roxadustat because it couldn’t detect traces small enough. But then those lower values completely invalidated the contamination defence on the whole. Truly a self goal.

SMRTL is a highly respected Lab. Alvarez seems to have been making it up as things went on. His methodology is felt to be shaky at best and not submitted for peer review.

Not disputing his general reputation, but fwiw, the method he used to test Simona's hair was peer-revieweed shortly after he did the test, which the SMRTL doc recognized in the report.

[ti-amie]

More on this Dr Alvarez of "Pamela" fame. This was posted by a fan on another site.

Alvarez submitted two reports of his Matrix methodology on the Keto MCT samples. The second report showed significantly lower concentrations of Roxadustat than the first report. He did this to try and prove to the Tribunal that Eichner’s SMRTL methodology wasn’t detecting Roxadustat because it couldn’t detect traces small enough. But then those lower values completely invalidated the contamination defence on the whole. Truly a self goal.

SMRTL is a highly respected Lab. Alvarez seems to have been making it up as things went on. His methodology is felt to be shaky at best and not submitted for peer review.

Not disputing his general reputation, but fwiw, the method he used to test Simona's hair was peer-revieweed shortly after he did the test, which the SMRTL doc recognized in the report.

What was their conclusion?

[meganfernandez]

More on this Dr Alvarez of "Pamela" fame. This was posted by a fan on another site.
SMRTL is a highly respected Lab. Alvarez seems to have been making it up as things went on. His methodology is felt to be shaky at best and not submitted for peer review.

Not disputing his general reputation, but fwiw, the method he used to test Simona's hair was peer-revieweed shortly after he did the test, which the SMRTL doc recognized in the report.

What was their conclusion?

I don’t know, it wasn’t in the report (as far as I read) but the SMRTL doctor acknowledged it. I should say it was published. That may or may not mean peer-reviewed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ti-amie]

I read that it was published despite it never peer reviewed.

[meganfernandez]

I read that it was published despite it never peer reviewed.

Possibly. I just thought it was notable that the opposing scientist seemed to concede some credibility with the acknowledgement.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ti-amie]

Simona Halep: Why has two-time Grand Slam champion been banned from tennis for four years?
By Emily Salley & Jonathan Jurejko
BBC Sport
Last updated on15 September 202315 September 2023

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep has been banned for four years for breaches of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme.

An independent tribunal determined the 31-year-old Romanian had committed "intentional" anti-doping violations.

Halep has always denied knowingly taking the banned substance Roxadustat.

She faced two charges: one for testing positive for Roxadustat and another for irregularities in her athlete biological passport.

The written reasons behind Halep's ban were released on Thursday. BBC Sport takes a look at the report's main findings.

What has Halep done?

Former world number one Halep tested positive for Roxadustat at the US Open in August 2022, leading to one of the most high-profile doping cases tennis has seen.

Roxadustat is used medically to treat anaemia - an iron deficiency which can cause fatigue.

The drug increases both the number of red blood cells and the amount of haemoglobin - a protein that carries oxygen in your body - found in those cells.

And having more oxygen in your body helps improve endurance and recovery.

She was given a provisional suspension when the failed test was announced in October 2022.

Halep said she had ingested Roxadustat unknowingly, arguing it was caused by contamination of a collagen supplement.

In May this year, a second charge was added after irregularities were found in her athlete biological passport (ABP).

The ABP programme collects and compares biological data to spot discrepancies in an athlete's blood over time that suggest possible doping.

Halep's defence suggested the irregularities spotted were caused by factors including blood loss during an operation and periods when she was not training.

What did the report find?

The report produced by an independent panel spanned 126 pages in which the complexity of the case was laid bare.

The conclusions centred around the two key areas: the alleged contamination of Roxadustat and the discrepancies in Halep's athlete blood passport.

The Roxadustat charges

The report concluded the collagen supplement taken by Halep - called Keto MCT - was contaminated with Roxadustat "on the balance of probability".

However, it also concluded there was another source of Roxadustat in the sample provided by Halep at the US Open on 29 August last year.

"If Halep did use contaminated Keto MCT as she describes, it could not have been the sole source of the Roxadustat detected," the report said.

Halep has "not been able to identify the source of the other Roxadustat".

The report said: "We recognise our conclusions involve a finding of something which in itself appears highly improbable; that around the same time in 2022, Ms Halep ingested Roxadustat from two entirely separate sources [the supplement and somewhere else].

"We should not and do not speculate on how the apparently highly unlikely coincidence of the two separate sources of Roxadustat came about. The evidence just does not tell us.

"All we can add here is that if we were to discard one or other of the conclusions [One being the MCT was contaminated, two being she took it from another source], it would be conclusion one. The evidence in support of conclusion [two] is too compellingly strong for that to be the one to give."

The ABP charge

The report said three experts had "a high degree of confidence" there was not an "innocent explanation" for the irregularities in Halep's athlete's biological passport (ABP) profile.

The three experts - Dr Jakob Morkeberg, Dr Laura Garvican-Lewis and Professor Giuseppe d'Onofrio - assessed 51 valid samples of Halep's blood and each concluded there was "likely doping".

Halep's defence - including blood loss during surgery and spells when she was inactive - was found not to be plausible.

The expert panel had a "strong opinion" the explanations provided by Halep could "not individually or collectively account for the abnormalities".

They concluded the possibility of blood manipulation was "high", adding it was "likely" to be a prohibited method.

The report says there are three well-known methods of blood doping: injecting erythropoietin (EPO) to stimulate red blood cells, infusing oxygen to increase haemoglobin, and transfusing blood to increase oxygen levels.

Why did she get four years?

The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA), which is responsible for testing within the sport, asked for a six-year ban because of what they argued were "aggravating circumstances", believing Halep's doping was "repetitive and sophisticated".

It also believed she must have been using a prohibited substance or prohibited method from March 2022 at the latest.

The ITIA suggested Halep was blood doping in order to boost her performance at Wimbledon and the US Open last year.

The ITIA also asked for her results to be disqualified from 8 March 2022 through to her provisional suspension on 7 October 2022.

The report found it was not "comfortably satisfied" that Halep had been doping from March, even though there were "strong grounds for suspicion".

No samples of Halep's ABP were collected between March and August last year.

All of Halep's results from the US Open in 2022 - where she played her last match - have been disqualified, with the tribunal "comfortably satisfied" she had committed a doping violation at the tournament.

Halep has stated her intention to appeal against the tribunal's decision at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

If she is to avoid a four-year ban from tennis, she has to prove "on the balance of probability" that her use of Roxadustat from another source was not intentional.

Why did Halep start using the supplement?

Halep, who has always denied knowingly taking Roxadustat, said the positive result came as the "biggest shock of her life" when her provisional suspension was announced in October 2022.

She said she had never heard of Roxadustat until then.

In her statement presented to the independent tribunal, Halep said the Keto MCT supplement had been recommended by her physiotherapist Candice Gohier to help with nasal problems.

She described how she checked with Gohier and coach Patrick Mouratoglou that Keto MCT was safe to use, with both of them agreeing it was after checking the supplement's listed ingredients.

Gohier got the supplement on the advice of Frederic Lefebvre, the director of physical preparation at Mouratoglou's academy.

Halep said she started using Keto MCT in the middle of August 2022, and used it for five days between 23 and 28 August - one day before the US Open, where she suffered an unexpected first-round exit.

However, Halep did not disclose the Keto MCT supplement on her Doping Control Form for the urine sample that tested positive on 29 August and she also did not mention it in an interview with the ITIA on 26 October.

At June's hearing, Halep said she had forgotten about it on both occasions.


https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/66805953

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

More details

There were three previous positive samples.

Sample 2 (Apr 16, 2014) - taken approx 4 weeks after Miami Open
Sample 19 (Jul 24, 2017) - taken approx 4 weeks after Eastbourne (Wimbledon tuneup)
Sample 23 (May 23, 2018) - taken approx 4 weeks after Stuttgart (sample later deemed invalid in JE1)
Sample 48 (Sept 22, 2022) - taken approx 4 weeks after US Open

There was not enough data to make comparisons to the 2014 and 2017 samples

Information is in paragraphs 339 and 371 of the ITIA report (pages 105, 118 -119)

From a fansite:
The deadline for cost submissions was yesterday so the ITIA is going to update the last two pages when they decide how to divide the costs of this affair. Once the document is updated the decision will be officially finalized and Simona will have 21 days to file her appeal at CAS.

Sigh. I don't think any tennis fan can be happy about how long she's been doping.

[texasniteowl]

I am a bit out of the loop...haven't been following closely. Were the previous 3 positives for the same substance or different substances?

[meganfernandez]

More details

There were three previous positive samples.

Sample 2 (Apr 16, 2014) - taken approx 4 weeks after Miami Open
Sample 19 (Jul 24, 2017) - taken approx 4 weeks after Eastbourne (Wimbledon tuneup)
Sample 23 (May 23, 2018) - taken approx 4 weeks after Stuttgart (sample later deemed invalid in JE1)
Sample 48 (Sept 22, 2022) - taken approx 4 weeks after US Open

There was not enough data to make comparisons to the 2014 and 2017 samples

Information is in paragraphs 339 and 371 of the ITIA report (pages 105, 118 -119)

From a fansite:
The deadline for cost submissions was yesterday so the ITIA is going to update the last two pages when they decide how to divide the costs of this affair. Once the document is updated the decision will be officially finalized and Simona will have 21 days to file her appeal at CAS.

Sigh. I don't think any tennis fan can be happy about how long she's been doping.

Was she suspended for the other positive samples?

[ti-amie]

There was not enough data for those. I could be wrong but to me it means they had nothing to compare the samples to. If she had enough roxa in her system to make everyone sit up and take notice four weeks after the US Open I don't know what to say.

The link to the report is upthread. You can scroll through to the pages I indicated. If she was testing positive back in 2014 all I can do is smh.

[meganfernandez]

There was not enough data for those. I could be wrong but to me it means they had nothing to compare the samples to. If she had enough roxa in her system to make everyone sit up and take notice four weeks after the US Open I don't know what to say.

The link to the report is upthread. You can scroll through to the pages I indicated. If she was testing positive back in 2014 all I can do is smh.

Why do they need to compare the presence of a banned substance to anything? It's banned, it's there, that's a violation. I don't understand why previous positive tests weren't punished. So strange.

If there wasn't enough data, does that undercut the credibility of the positive test?

All rhetorical. It sounds complicated. And it also looks damning.

[ponchi101]

Because even banned substances have a lower threshold. You can test positive for marihuana but if the level is so low by now, for example, somebody in Colorado could claim that they were just next to somebody smoking.
My $0.02. Only way that makes sense to me.

[ti-amie]

The man who owns the company that makes the supplement Halep is saying was contaminated has spoken with Romanian press.

This is a fan translation from another site.

They interviewed Kostas Koveos. He says there has been no lawsuit filed. He says that Alvarez’s tests are “ questionable” and denies that the supplement was contaminated. He blames Simona for leaking the company’s ID to press. He said Keto MCT With Marine Collagen was first produced in 2018 and has expiry date of 3 years. He says it was produced more than once. Quantum Nutrition Inc donated $25,000 to Tennis Canada.

Here is the link to the Romanian article.

https://www.gsp.ro/gsp-ro/gsp-special/i ... 12707.html

[meganfernandez]

Because even banned substances have a lower threshold. You can test positive for marihuana but if the level is so low by now, for example, somebody in Colorado could claim that they were just next to somebody smoking.
My $0.02. Only way that makes sense to me.

So she tested positive but not by enough to be considered a violation?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk