Culture
Jannik Sinner doping case: WADA seeks ban of up to two years in appeal
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has announced that it will appeal against the “no fault or negligence” finding in Jannik Sinner’s anti-doping case.
WADA is seeking a “period of ineligibility of one or two years,” in which the world No. 1 tennis player and two-time Grand Slam champion would be barred from competing in the sport at all levels. Sinner won the U.S. Open in New York just three weeks ago.
Sinner, who is currently playing at the China Open in Beijing, said he was “surprised” by WADA’s decision.
“Obviously I’m very disappointed and also surprised of this appeal, to be honest, because we had three hearings. All three hearings came out very positively for me,” he told reporters after beating Roman Safiullin to reach the last eight in Beijing.
“We always talk about the same thing. Maybe they just want to make sure that everything is in the right position.”
In a further statement, a “disappointed” Sinner added that there had been “three separate hearings in each case confirming my innocence” in the case.
“Several months of interviews and investigations culminated in three senior judges scrutinising every detail through a formal hearing,” the statement continued.
“They issued an in-depth judgement explaining why they determined me not at fault, with clear evidence provided and my cooperation throughout.
“On the back of such a robust process both the ITIA and the Italian anti-doping authority accepted it and waived their rights to appeal.”
Sinner added that the need for a “thorough investigation” was understandable and that he would “cooperate fully” in the investigation, but questioned why the process needed to be reopened.
Sinner tested positive for clostebol, a banned anabolic steroid, on two occasions: March 10, in-competition at the BNP Paribas Open held in Indian Wells, Calif, and March 18, out of competition.
An independent tribunal convened by the ITIA and conducted by Sports Resolutions ruled that Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” for those positive tests in a hearing on August 15, but still found Sinner to have committed two anti-doping violations, for which he was stripped of his ranking points, prize money, and results from that event.
It accepted the Italian world No.1’s explanation that Sinner’s physiotherapist, Umberto Ferrara, had brought an over-the-counter healing spray containing clostebol to Indian Wells. His trainer, physiotherapist, Giacomo Naldi, cut his hand, and then used the spray on that cut. Naldi then conducted massages on Sinner, which led to transdermal contamination with the clostebol from the healing spray.
Sinner parted company with Naldi and Ferrara on the eve of the U.S. Open.
WADA is now challenging the decision that Sinner was not at fault for his violation. In a statement released today Saturday September 28, it said: “The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) confirms that on Thursday 26 September, it lodged an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the case of Italian tennis player, Jannik Sinner, who was found by an independent tribunal of the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) to bear no fault or negligence having twice tested positive for clostebol, a prohibited substance, in March 2024.
“It is WADA’s view that the finding of “no fault or negligence” was not correct under the applicable rules. WADA is seeking a period of ineligibility of between one and two years. WADA is not seeking a disqualification of any results, save that which has already been imposed by the tribunal of first instance.”
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In response, the ITIA issued its own statement.
“The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) acknowledges the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) decision to appeal the ruling of No Fault or Negligence in the case of Italian tennis player Jannik Sinner, issued by an independent tribunal appointed by Sport Resolutions on 19 August 2024. Under the terms of the World Anti-Doping Code, WADA has the final right to appeal all such decisions,” an ITIA spokesperson said.
“Having reached an agreed set of facts following a thorough investigative process, the case was referred to a tribunal entirely independent of the ITIA to determine level of fault and therefore sanction because of the unique set of circumstances, and lack of comparable precedent.
“The process was run according to World Anti-Doping Code guidelines; however, the ITIA acknowledges and respects WADA’s right to appeal the independent tribunal’s decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”
Jannik Sinner won the U.S. Open in the immediate aftermath of the ITIA ruling on his anti-doping case. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
In the ITIA’s full decision, Professor David Cowan said that “even if the administration had been intentional, the minute amounts likely to have been administered would not have had […] any relevant doping, or performance enhancing, effect upon the player.”
A positive test for clostebol carries a mandatory provisional suspension from tennis, but two further independent tribunals upheld Sinner’s appeals against those suspensions, which were active between April 4 and April 5 and April 17 and April 20. The success of those appeals meant that the two positive tests, and the attached suspensions, were not made public until the conclusion of the ITIA’s investigation into Sinner’s case. This drew allegations of double standards from some of Sinner’s tennis peers, but is in line with ITIA protocol.
In a statement released at the conclusion of the investigation, Sinner said: “I will now put this very challenging and hugely unfortunate period behind me.” The best men’s tennis player in the world will have to resume it now.
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‘The news that Sinner will have been fearing’
Analysis from Charlie Eccleshare, tennis writer
Sinner emerged from months of uncertainty to win the U.S. Open three weeks ago. Now he has been put back under investigation, and the renewed scrutiny of the initial ITIA ruling that will come with it.
It wasn’t as though the world No. 1 necessarily appeared liberated in New York — his post-match press conference after the final was as much subdued as it was celebratory — but there was an air of Sinner having temporarily closed a chapter behind him.
The prospect of a WADA appeal was always there however, and Saturday morning brought the news that Sinner will have been fearing. He was able to compartmentalize pretty well during the five months from being told of the positive test to it becoming public in August. He even won the Cincinnati Open two days before the full decision in his case was released.
But in his post-final press conference in New York, he acknowledged that his demeanor and personality had changed during the investigation.
“Obviously, it was very difficult to enjoy certain moments,” he said.
“Even the way I behaved or how I entered the court in some tournaments was no longer the same as before.”
Jannik Sinner answered numerous questions about his case at his pre-tournament press conference and throughout the U.S. Open. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
This decision from WADA, and the attached seeking of a ban of up to two years, will be another big challenge of his mentality.
When the independent tribunal convened by the ITIA ruled that Sinner bore “no fault or negligence” — the key term that WADA is challenging — numerous players, some of them high-profile, expressed a view that the swiftness of his case pointed to double standards in the sport.
In the higher echelons of tennis there will surely be dismay at the world’s best male player facing a doping investigation, as WADA’s appeal will now be referred to CAS.
(Top photo: Kena Betancur / AFP via Getty Images)
Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?
How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.
Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.
To wit:
Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?
I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.
Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.
Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.
This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …
Question 1/7
Stop, if the car is going “clunk”
Or if the sun has made you blind.
Don’t answer e–mails when you’re drunk.
Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.
Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.Let’s start with the first stanza.
A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights places where authors were born (or lived) that later became locations in their books. To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the works if you’d like to do further reading.
AMERICA, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
For those of us in the national memory-keeping business, anniversaries hold near-totemic power. Satisfyingly round units of time, ideally bearing fancy, Latin-derived names, serve as the overburdened pegs on which to hang think pieces and museum exhibits, revisionist documentaries and maudlin public ceremonies. The arbitrary nature of such occasions is precisely what gives them their charge, inviting us to set aside complacency and submit to a comprehensive check-in.
In his new book, “America, U.S.A.,” Eddie S. Glaude Jr. presents an intriguing variation on the genre, seeing the country’s 250th birthday as an anniversary of anniversaries: 50 years since the malaise-ridden, schlock-heavy Bicentennial. A century since the subdued Prohibition-era Sesquicentennial. A century and a half since telegraphed reports of George Armstrong Custer’s defeat by the Lakota and Cheyenne at Little Bighorn rudely interrupted the Gilded Age Republic’s 100th birthday party.
If an anniversary offers a snapshot of a moment, the core of Glaude’s book is an old-timey photo album, a collection of notable episodes from earlier national reckonings, long-ago glances in the mirror. An estimable scholar of Black history, politics and religion at Princeton — best known for “Begin Again,” his 2020 meditation on James Baldwin’s relevance for our times — Glaude focuses, as his subtitle puts it, on “how race shadows the nation’s anniversaries.”
Such celebrations, he contends, have never really been the moments for honest self-reflection they are often advertised to be. Instead, the nation usually shatters the mirror, refusing to accept what it prefers not to see. “American anniversaries are often moments to turn a blind eye to the evils of the past and the present,” Glaude writes, “to suppress the fact of America’s divided soul.”
It’s a clever concept, and, needless to say, perfectly timed. Last year, Glaude notes, the Trump administration executed a hostile takeover of the government’s studiously bipartisan 250th anniversary planning. It is now preparing a program that is certain to conceal more than it reveals about the country ostensibly being celebrated.
Glaude, in no mood for celebration, argues that such omissions and evasions also defined commemorations in the past. In 1875, Frederick Douglass predicted “one grand Centennial hosannah of peace and good will to all the white race of this country.” He was right: The nation reached 100 years old at a crucial moment in the post-Civil War fight over racial equality, with white Northerners ready to give up on Southern Reconstruction. The occasion would help the once-warring sections to reunite around a shared commitment to white supremacy. On May 10, 1876, at the opening of the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the police tried to bar Douglass from the grandstand, until a white politician vouched for him.
The 150th anniversary came soon after a resurgent Ku Klux Klan successfully pushed for a restrictive immigration law aimed at keeping America a “Nordic” nation. At the lavishly funded, lightly attended celebrations in Philadelphia, Black veterans of World War I were excluded from marching in the opening parade. A writer with The Associated Negro Press wondered “what was in the breast of those black men who fought to make America safe for Democracy and on Monday stood on the sidelines, forgotten, as the Nordic strode by in all his vain pride.”
By 1976, when the nation marked its Bicentennial, the violence of the ’60s had destroyed any semblance of consensus. Vietnam and Watergate had eroded trust in the government. The commission initially tasked with organizing the anniversary was disbanded amid reports of corruption. Corporations filled the vacuum, Glaude explains, with “star-spangled whoopee cushions; patriotic toilet seats; Liberty hamburgers; red, white and blue beer cans.” The author, around 8 years old at the time, dimly remembers donning a pair of tricolor trousers.
A half-century later, Glaude is refreshingly honest about the depths of his despair. “I do not love America, and never have, especially now,” he writes in one of the more startling opening sentences I’ve read in some time. He dismisses this year’s Semiquincentennial as reaching back “to a storybook America that requires either the banishment of Black people from view or the reduction of our role in the country’s history, so as to affirm America’s ongoing quest to be a more perfect union.”
Undoubtedly true. But Trump doesn’t own the country, at least not yet, nor the 250th anniversary of one of the most radically liberatory and confusingly contradictory events in world history — an inspiration, as Glaude shows, even to critical observers of the American experiment, like Douglass. Far from the revanchist MAGA-palooza in Washington, I suspect this summer’s unasked-for invitation to national soul-searching may surprise us yet.
Despite his despair, Glaude concludes that “the past still offers resources for us to freedom-dream.” So, too, does this book.
AMERICA, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries | By Eddie S. Glaude Jr. | Crown | 270 pp. | $31
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