The World Anti-Doping Agency took an unprecedented step to recommend that anti-doping authorities overturn bans for some of the 172 athletes who tested positive for the heart drug meldonium since it was added to the prohibited substances list on January 1 this year. But the Katusha team told Cyclingnews it is unsure of whether its rider Eduard Vorganov will be cleared because the amnesty depends on the amount of the drug detected in the athlete's sample.
Meldonium, a drug manufactured in Latvia, had been monitored by WADA and then added to the banned list, saying there was “evidence of its use by athletes with the intention of enhancing performance”.
Vorganov was the only cyclists to test positive for the drug. His sample was taken out-of-competition on January 14, 2016. Because of Luca Paolini's positive for cocaine from the 2015 Tour de France, the entire team could have faced a suspension under the UCI anti-doping rules, but the UCI Disciplinary Commission decided a ban would be 'disproportionate'.
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WADA came under fire as the meldonium positives, mostly from Russian athletes, began to pile up, but faced immense pressure after tennis star Maria Sharapova tested positive for it earlier this year.
In a statement this week, WADA admitted that there is only limited data on how quickly the drug leaves the human body. While the studies are ongoing, they found that low levels of the drug could show up in an athlete's urine for "a few months", meaning some positives could have been the result of the athlete using the drug before it was banned.
The question now is which athletes took the drug before it was banned and were still clearing it from their systems, and which athletes continued to take it in violation of the WADA code. Only the ongoing excretion studies will provide definitive guidelines for this decision.
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