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Table tennis player Bernadette Szocs said on Tuesday that she wholeheartedly wishes for Simona Halep, who tested positive for roxadustat during an anti-doping check, to prove she is innocent, told Agerpres.
"I wholeheartedly wish for Simona Halep to prove that she is innocent. I hope she is not suspended, because I know what it means to not be able to participate in competitions. In tennis, I think it is difficult to be suspended for 4 years and after that to come back. I really want Simona to prove her innocence. I am convinced that she did not take anything and that she is innocent," said Szocs, at the release of the magazine "Nascut pentru sport" (Born for Sports) national edition issue 2.
"All my life I've been careful because doping is a serious thing and I wouldn't want to destroy my career. Now, after what has happened with Simona, I'm much more careful about who is around me. And if I'm given a drug, I personally check what it's all about. There have been many anti-doping checks in my career, and I was even woken up at 5 in the morning for that," said the three-time European table tennis champion.
Szocs on Tuesday joined other retired or still competing Romanian athletes for the release of the magazine "Born for Sport," national edition issue 2.
Romania's greatest female tennis player of all time Simona Halep announced on October 21 that she had tested positive for the roxadustat on an anti-doping check.
"Today begins the hardest match of my life: a fight for the truth. I have been notified that I tested positive for a substance called Roxadustat in an extremely low quality, which came as the biggest shock of my life. Throughout my career, the the idea of ??cheating never ever crossed my mind once, as it is totally against all values I have been educated with. Facing such an unfair situation, I feel completely confused and betrayed. I will fight until the end to prove that I never knowingly took any prohibited substance and I have faith that sooner or later, the truth will come out," said Halep.
Simona Halep, the winner of two Grand Slam titles, at Roland Garros (2018) and Wimbledon (2019), added that in her case it is not about titles and money, but about her honour: "It's not about the titles or money. It's about honour, and the love story I have developed with the game of tennis over the last 25 years."
"Simona Halep, a 31-year-old tennis player, has been provisionally suspended under Article 7.12.1 of the 2022 Tennis Anti-Doping Program (TADP),'' the Reuters news agency reports quoting the Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA).
The sample was split into A and B samples and the subsequent analysis found that the A sample contained FG-4592 (Roxadustat), which is a prohibited substance listed in the 2022 World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Prohibited List', mentioned ITIA, specifying that the presence of the substance was confirmed at the counter-expertise.
Halep, currently world number 10, tested positive at the US Open, where she lost in the first round to Ukraine's Daria Snigur 6-2 0-6 6-4.
