Wimbledon and US Open doubles champion Robert Farah will not be banned despite being found in violation of the tennis anti-doping program.
Colombian tennis player Robert Farah was provisionally suspended last month for violating the the tennis anti-doping program after he was tested positive for Boldenone, a banned substance.
Farah argued that the presence of anabolic steroid Boldenone in his system was from eating contaminated meat in his home country. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) decided that Farah "bears no fault or negligence for the violation".
The positive test occurred in October and was confirmed by the ITF last month, causing Farah to miss the Australian Open. After the positive result was released, he tweeted: "Two weeks before the test mentioned… I did an anti-doping test in Shanghai which had a negative result."
"I was also tested at least 15 other times randomly in the international circuit throughout the year with the same negative result. As stated by the Colombian Olympic Committee in 2018, this substance is found frequently in Colombian meat and may affect athletes' test results," Farah argued.
In January, Chile's Nicolas Jarry was also provisionally suspended after testing positive for two banned substances during the 2019 Davis Cup. The ITF said his sample contained anabolic agent ligandrol and anabolic steroid stanozolol.
The World No. 78 Jarry claimed that he had not "intentionally" taken any banned substance during his career and said: "It strongly looks like a cross-contamination case."
He mentioned that he had taken "multi-vitamins made in Brazil" that his doctor recommended because they were "guaranteed to be free from banned substances".
He argued that he had undergone two urine tests during the Davis Cup in Madrid in November and that the first one was clean before the second detected "levels so low that neither substance could have provided me any performance-enhancing benefit".
