Patrick Mouratoglou, for the first time about the Simona Halep case: “I feel responsible. We brought him this collagen.”
Patrick Mouratoglou, Simona Halep’s coach, spoke for the first time about the fact that he and his team recommended the athlete, then purchased the contaminated supplement, without checking it. The 32-year-old tennis player appealed to TAS the 4-year suspension she received for testing positive for roxadustat at the US Open 2022, informs Gazeta Sporturilor.
“I am confident for Simona Halep’s future after her appeal to TAS because it is an independent tribunal. We were able to determine where the contamination came from. Indeed, we suggested that he take the collagen and bought it from a company It happened that this collagen was contaminated. I had no way of knowing, but I feel responsible for what happened because it’s about my team and me. We brought him this collagen,” Patrick Mouratoglou said in a video posted on his Instagram account.
The French coach says “all possible tests” were done to establish it was contamination, and Simona Halep never doped, being only a victim.
According to Patrick Mouratoglou, any athlete can have problems, given that supplements should be “clean”, but it happens more and more often “to be contaminated”, and doping tests come back positive.
“You are hurt by the fact that your name is associated with doping, although you have not doped, your career is stopped for a period of time that can be very long. It damages your reputation for an unfair reason, because you didn’t do anything. I realized that anyone can do it and that you have to be 100% sure that won’t happen with the supplement companies you choose,” Patrick Mouratoglou concluded
On September 12, Simona Halep received a 4-year suspension for doping from the independent tribunal Sports Resolutions.
The tennis player from Constanta announced on the day of the decision that she would appeal the suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAS), and more than a month later, her team drew up the appeal.
Simona Halep was found guilty of two violations of anti-doping regulations, the use of a banned substance, roxadustat, and a prohibited method/substance during the 2022 season, a conclusion reached by ITIA experts based on data from her biological passport.
Simona Halep’s team explained her positive test for roxadustat by claiming that a dietary supplement she used before the US Open 2022, a collagen powder, Keto MCT, was contaminated.
Simona’s suspension will expire on October 6, 2026. At that point, Halep will be 35 years old.
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