Nikola Bartunkova, a promising 18-year-old tennis player from the Czech Republic, has accepted a six-month suspension from the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
Bartunkova was provisionally suspended in May after testing positive for trimetazidine, a drug normally used as heart medication for its ability to enhance blood flow.
That provisional suspension covers the length of her ban, awarded after she successfully proved that she bore “no significant fault or negligence” for her positive test. Bartunkova, a junior Wimbledon finalist last year who reached a career-high ranking of No. 226 in April, is therefore now free to play.
Bartunkova successfully proved that the trimetazidine found in her system in February and March came from a contaminated supplement. The ITIA sent the supplement to “the independent and WADA-accredited Sports Medicine Research & Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) in Utah, USA,” for testing, according to a statement issued by the ITIA on Thursday, November 14.
“These findings were confirmed, and the scenario was verified by an independent scientific expert as plausible. As such, and following an interview with the player, the ITIA accepted that the violation was not intentional and that the player bore ‘No Significant Fault or Negligence’, “it said.
To reach a verdict of “no significant fault or negligence”, the player must “establish that their fault or negligence, when viewed in totality of the circumstances and taking into account the criteria for no fault or negligence, was not significant in relation to the anti-doping rule violation.”
To reach a verdict of “no fault or negligence,” the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme (TADP) requires that a player “did not know or suspect, and could not reasonably have known or suspected even with the exercise of utmost caution, that they had used or been administered the prohibited substance.”
The distinction between these two levels of fault is at the heart of the appeal launched by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) into Jannik Sinner’s doping case. The organization announced on September 28 that it would appeal the “no fault or negligence” ruling of an independent tribunal convened by the ITIA into Sinner’s case, because it believes that the circumstances of Sinner’s case merit a “period of ineligibility of one or two years” commensurate with a judgment of “no significant fault or negligence.”
Sinner twice tested positive for clostebol, a performance-enhancing anabolic steroid, in March this year. Both positive tests carried a provisional suspension, but Sinner successfully appealed those suspensions on both occasions. Under ITIA protocol, he was therefore both allowed to play and to have the positive tests kept private. Bartunkova, who did not appeal her provisional suspension, had her positive test publicized, also in accordance with ITIA protocol.
Bartunkova and Sinner’s case are entirely distinct and cannot be compared; the widely accepted possibility of contamination in supplements and other substances designed to be ingested places a greater burden of responsibility on players to satisfy the “exercise of utmost caution.” Bartunkova admitted under investigation that she did not bear “no fault or negligence” for her positive tests.
CAS is currently reviewing the WADA appeal. Sinner, who is in action at the ATP Finals in his home country this week, is not expected to learn his fate until next year.
(Top photo: Tim Clayton / Corbis via Getty Images
