Related case:
ITF 2017 ITF vs Elizaveta Koklina
April 16, 2018
In October 2021 the International Tennis Federation (ITF) has reported an anti-doping rule violation against the Russian tennis player Elizavetka Koklina after her sample tested positive for the prohibited substance Hydrocholothiazide.
After notification the Athlete gave a prompt admission, waived her right for a hearing, accepted the provisional suspension and the decision rendered by the ITF.
The Athlete denied the intentional use of the substance and explained with evidence that the day before the sample colleciton she became ill and underwent medical treatment for an emergency hypertensive crisis. At the clinic her neurologist prescribed a tablet of Captopril and she used her mobile telephone to check to whether the medication contained any prohibited substance before ingestion of this medication.
Yet unknown to the Athlete or the doctor, the nurse by mistake had substituted the Captopril tablet for a tablet of Capozide (containing 25 mg of hydrochlorothiazide). Both the doctor and the nurse ware aware that the Athlete was a professiona tennis player. They confirmed in their statements that the Athlete suffered from an emergency hypertensive crisis and that Captopril was prescribed as treatment.
Following internal investigations thereupon in October 2021 the clinic established that the nurse by mistake had brought to the consultation room a tablet of Capozide, instead of the prescribed Captopril tablet. In addition the Montreal Lab confirmed that the concentration found in the Athlete's sample could be consistent with the Athlete's recent use of a Capozide tablet.
The ITF concludes that the Athlete has established that it is more likely than not that the presence of Hydrochlorothiazide found in her sample was due to her ingestion of a Capozide tablet (containing 25 mg of hydrochlorothiazide). The Athlete was administered at the Clinic on 15 August 2021, whereas she believed the tablet to be Captopril, which she was prescribed to treat an emergency hypertensive crisis, but that had, unknown to the Athlete or the Doctor who prescribed it, been substituted by the Nurse for a tablet of Capozide.
Further the ITF accepts, in the exceptional circumstances of this case and in light of all of the evidence provided by the Player, that the Player acted with No Fault or Negligence in relation to her violation because she has established that she did not know or suspect and could not reasonably have known or suspected even with the utmost caution that she had ingested or was at risk of ingesting Hydrochlorothiazide.
The ITF regards that this is the Athlete's second anti-doping rule violations. Yet, where a finding of No Fault or Negligence is made, TADP Article 10.5 provides that any otherwise applicable period of Ineligibility shall be eliminated entirely.
Therefore the ITF decides on 1 February 2022 that the otherwise applicable calculation in respect of a second Anti-Doping Rule Violation is not engaged, and that the Athlete will not serve any period of Ineligibility for her violation. Fairness requires that the Athlete's will retain the results obtained between the date of the sample collection and the date of this Decision.
