Drugs destroyed the integrity of cycling and athletics - and racing must be careful it's not heading the same way

At last year’s US Open, Simona Halep, one of tennis’s megastars, tested positive for the blood-doping drug Roxadustat. 

Halep strenuously denies doping and her defence contended that a legal supplement called MCT Keto had been contaminated. She deployed two expert witnesses to undertake tests that they argued proved as much.

An expert for the prosecuting International Tennis Integrity Agency undertook the same tests that showed no traces of Roxadustat. The disciplinary panel ultimately concluded that the levels found in her system could not have come from contamination and, despite there being no hard evidence of Halep having intentionally doped, under the terms of strict liability she was banned from the sport for four years. No mucking about.