Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Tue Mar 08, 2016 4:46 pm  

TheButcher wrote:

She's been caught, and now trying to damage control everything.

She'll no doubt put some spin on it.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:47 am  

If we recall Keiron Cunningham's mitigating circumstances which went along the lines of "unknowingly taken a banned substance" then perhaps this is the similar ? i.e. I have been taking this permitted substance without issue for 10yrs but since Jan its been banned and no-one told me.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Wed Mar 09, 2016 8:54 am  

However - the piece from Dick Pound suggests that changes to the banned list were first published in Sep 15, so there's a significant time to make sure you're "clean' by Jan 16.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Wed Mar 09, 2016 9:44 pm  

shinymcshine wrote:

If we recall Keiron Cunningham's mitigating circumstances which went along the lines of "unknowingly taken a banned substance" then perhaps this is the similar ? i.e. I have been taking this permitted substance without issue for 10yrs but since Jan its been banned and no-one told me.

You would assume that someone like Sharapova, at the very top of the game, has people employed to ensure she doesn't take things that are banned.

I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to believe that an elite sportsperson, in a sport with plenty of money riding on it and where they're paid lots of money, can take something without knowing what's in it or whether that substance is banned or not. Especially in individual sport.

I have no specific knowledge in this case but I have heard (from a sports conditioner) of cases where people have been taking banned substances alongside other substances that are initially legal. They've managed to mask the banned substances but then caught out when one of the initially legal substances they're taking is made illegal because they don't know how to mask it.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Thu Mar 10, 2016 11:36 am  

Him wrote:

You would assume that someone like Sharapova, at the very top of the game, has people employed to ensure she doesn't take things that are banned.

I think the smart money goes on her having people to ensure she doesn't get caught.

We're not in the amateur game any more. She's a fully professional athlete. It stands to reason she and every other fully professional athlete will seek to exploit all possible avenues of advantage - legal or not. She would be UN-professional not to. If people didn't want this kind of thing cropping up in sport they should never have agreed to the introduction of professionalism.

I mean, I've yet to hear a single person argue the difference between performance-enhancing and non-performance-enhancing drugs without sounding ridiculous.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Thu Mar 10, 2016 12:07 pm  

She's been earning around £30 million a year with endorsements and corporate sponsorship. Clearly it's been worth the risk. The hypocrisy of those corporate companies is laughable though. They're happy to throw millions at her when she's the apparent golden girl but now she's been caught out they run for the hills as fast as they can to distance themselves from a 'cheat'.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Thu Mar 10, 2016 1:30 pm  

King Street Cat wrote:

She's been earning around £30 million a year with endorsements and corporate sponsorship. Clearly it's been worth the risk. The hypocrisy of those corporate companies is laughable though. They're happy to throw millions at her when she's the apparent golden girl but now she's been caught out they run for the hills as fast as they can to distance themselves from a 'cheat'.

To be fair - BOTH parties know the end-result should the athlete get found out. There can be no complaints from either side.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Tue Apr 12, 2016 12:20 pm  

By the way - did anyone else think Ernie Els SIX-PUTTING FROM TWO FEET the first hole at the Masters ... erm ... strange?

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Tue Apr 12, 2016 12:30 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

By the way - did anyone else think Ernie Els SIX-PUTTING FROM TWO FEET the first hole at the Masters ... erm ... strange?

Adding to the above, I used to work for one of the big four betting companies and got to know several of the guys operating in a hardened IT sub-basement behind three inches of steel. Knowing the way those guys operated they would have been all over that incident like a rash.

People think I'm suspicious. Betting companies are like a privatised KGB.

Re: Just what was Sharapova taking? : Wed Apr 13, 2016 9:10 am  

So what do they make of Leicester City's rise to the top, the demise of Chelsea, or even the poor start from the Rhinos ?

Given the corruption and betting scandals we've heard about already in other areas can we trust anything anymore ?