Doping

Russian former world number one tennis player Maria Sharapova has recalled her horror at having to tell the world that she had tested positive for a banned substance in 2016, saying that her ordeal turned her into a "fighter".

Olympic finalist sprinter Deajah Stevens will miss the Tokyo Games after missing three drugs tests, having claimed that she had changed her number after a stalker threat and failed to realize her phone had run out of power.

Top Russian athletes, including world champion high jumper Maria Lasitskene, have turned to President Vladimir Putin asking him ‘to save’ Russian athletics, which they claim to be ‘on the verge of disaster.’

Relieved champion boxer and Olympic contender Ginny Fuchs has thanked the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and bemused fans on Twitter after proving that her positive drugs tests were the result of unprotected sex with her boyfriend.

World 400m champion Salwa Eid Naser, who insisted she had not been tested this year and had "never been a cheat" despite facing a ban for missing three previous tests, also missed one in January, officials have announced.

Bahraini world champion Salwa Eid Naser has bizarrely claimed that missing a hat-trick of doping tests is no cause for suspicion, shunning accusations of cheating while calling a potential ban "a little stain" on her reputation.

As some players and fixers desperately try to restore their incomes and athletes risk the temptation of performance enhancers and other drugs while sport stands still, anti-doping and governing bodies are feeling the pressure.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Witold Banka has warned that the coronavirus pandemic should not be used as an excuse for violating doping rules, vowing that all cheaters will be caught.

American long jumper and sprinter Jarrion Lawson has had a four-year doping ban annulled by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which ruled that a prohibited steroid entered the athlete’s body through “contaminated beef.”