I don't know what Sharapova was taking but I know what I'd give her

It highlights a fact that I came around to agreeing with following the Lance Armstrong affair. Rather than being opposed to drug cheats the truth is sport actively condones them. But only on the proviso that they don't get caught - in which case they are buried.

One of the big questions which was left completely untouched in the wake of Armstrong was - how much did his business partners know? Likewise, how much did the Lance Armstrong charity know?

I certainly didn't buy that fawning propaganda piece by Alex Gibney (who never saw a corporate dollar he didn't like).

She will have people solely employed to advise on diet and nutrition, you'd think at least one of 'team' Sharapova would have been keeping an eye on the banned substances list.

Personally I think it will be rife in most sports, it's just a game of Russian roulette as to whether you get tested or caught.

Define "found out"! If as a pro athlete whose profession depends on steering clear of banned substances, you get an updated 'banned' list, it seems astonishingly blase to claim you didn't twig. It's not as if everyone isn't aware that drugs have a generic as well as brand name, is it?

Apart from that, those advising her must have known she was on this drug, so they must have curiously missed the point too.

But if you aren't interested enough to find out when WADA send you a new banned substances list, then its not exactly the sort of thing you casually "find out"; how did she find out? Happening to read an article about mildronate whilst extremely bored?


Leaving aside the improbability that her advisers also failed to realise AND failed to 'click on the link' as well, (what do they actually do, then?) I find it almost beyond belief that she would get such a fundamentally vital email yet "fail to click on the link" or give it to someone in her team to click on the link for her.

If her account is true then she deserves the same ban as taking it deliberately, as she clearly didn't care whether the pills she was popping were legal or not, having better things to occupy her time than clicking on some boring link of detailed banned substances.

Personally I think it will be rife in most sports, it's just a game of Russian roulette as to whether you get tested or caught.'"

You'd think she'd have at least one pro to handle that side of things, not sure about a "team", but then if I think about it, I must say it is very odd if an athlete takes a banned substance, when they know (a) it's now banned and (b) it will certainly show up in their next test.

That's the bit that suggests monumental cockup rather than attempt to cheat, to me. Unless being tested was unlikely, but I thought they all had to provide samples.

We're talking about professional Tennis at the pinnacle here, no way will it be one person's job. There will be at least 4 or 5 people employed; coach, manager/agent, doctor/physio, psychologist, dietician/nutritionalist. They won't be working for peanuts either, one report suggests a wage figure of around one million dollars.

Pro athletes have doping information consistently forced upon them. It's so high profile that it simply isn't an excuse to say 'I didn't know.' I don't believe for one moment that such a high profile athlete with multiple hangers-on, medical team, personal Doctors, PR and general staff would just take any medication without high profile consultation on the subject.

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

She has been the highest paid female athlete for the last 11 yrs. and is estimated to be worth $200 million.

Her Nike sponsorship is reputed to be $70 million in total and her losses per year, if banned, are reportedly $30 million per year.

She is a veritable cash cow, pardon the pun, and you would have thought it would be in someone's interest to look after her.

She'll no doubt put some spin on it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.