莎拉波娃未通过澳网药检:承诺不会退役

北京时间今日（3月8日）凌晨，前世界第一、5届大满贯冠军得主、全满贯球员莎拉波娃在洛杉矶宣布，她接到ITF的通知，她此前服用的药物列入违禁之列，在澳网她没有通过药检。莎娃同时表示自己不会因此退役。“我知道会得到相应的惩罚，但我不会以这样的方式结束职业生涯，我希望能有机会打比赛。“

莎拉波娃在新闻发布会上说，她被检测出米屈肼阳性。她从2006年起开始服用含有米屈肼成分的药物，用于治疗镁缺乏和家族遗传的高血糖等病症。

由于ITF修改规则，2016年该药物成份被列为违禁药，而莎娃2006年就开始服用该药物。莎娃进一步解释称，因为身体原因，她不能完全确定停止服用该药，但会努力尝试在不用药物的情况下看看身体是否能好转，以便尽快重返赛场。

莎拉波娃的记者发布会结束后，ITF马上做出反应，他们在官网上公布了一份声明，其中确认了莎娃禁赛期将从3月12日开始。

Former world number one Maria Sharapova has revealed she failed a drugs test at the Australian Open.

The Russian, 28, tested positive for meldonium, a substance she has been taking since 2006 for health issues.

Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion, is provisionally suspended from 12 March pending further action.

"I did fail the test and take full responsibility for it," said Sharapova, who won the Wimbledon title as a 17-year-old in 2004.

"For the past 10 years I have been given a medicine called mildronate by my family doctor and a few days ago after I received a letter from the ITF [International Tennis Federation] I found out it also has another name of meldonium, which I did not know."

Sharapova's lawyer, John Haggerty, told Sports Illustrated he was attempting to speak to the ITF because "we think there is a laundry list of extremely mitigating circumstances that once taken into consideration would result in dramatically reducing any sanction that they might want to impose on Maria".

Completely. There had been speculation Sharapova was going to announce her retirement at a Los Angeles news conference, which was streamed live online.

"I know many of you thought that I would be retiring today but if I was ever going to announce my retirement it would not be in a downtown Los Angeles hotel with this fairly ugly carpet," she said.

It is meant for angina patients but athletes like it because it helps their endurance and ability to recover from big efforts.

It is on the banned list now because Wada started seeing it in lots of samples and found it does have performance-enhancing properties. It was then added to Wada's 'watchlist' for over a year. The decision to ban it was communicated last autumn and it was added to the banned list on 1 January.

Made in Latvia, it is widely available - without prescription and at low cost - in many east European countries but it is not licensed in most western countries, including the United States.

It is widely thought that hundreds of athletes have been using it and there are a lot more cases in the pipeline.