Als ob das was neues ist! Les mal das hier:
BRUSSELS, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova has tested positive for a banned drug, Belgian regional sports minister Claude Eerdekens said on Monday.
Eerdekens said the Russian player tested positive for the stimulant ephedrine after an exhibition match in Charleroi on December 19.
"One of four players in a Dec 19 exhibition tournament in Charleroi tested positive in a doping test," Eederkens, sports minister for the French-speaking community in Belgium, said in a statement.
"The Sports Ministry wishes to point out that the athlete who tested positive for ephedrine is Svetlana Kuznetsova."
Rumours of the positive test surfaced at the Australian Open in Melbourne earlier on Monday and Kuznetsova, ranked fifth in the world, denied ever taking drugs.
"I am not worried. I am definitely not using nothing to push myself up in the game," she said, adding she had been tested for drugs 11 times last year.
"I'm pretty sure that everybody's pretty clean... because the anti-doping programme it doesn't allow us to take nothing."
The Women's Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation said in Melbourne they had not been informed of any positive test.
Russian tennis chief Shamil Tarpishchev reacted angrily to the news and denied any drug-taking by his players.
RULES BROKEN
"First of all, this Belgian sports minister has broken every ethical rule in the book by naming a player without any proof of wrongdoing, without any basic evidence," the president of the Russian Tennis Federation told Reuters in a Moscow telephone interview.
"We all know the basic principle in doping cases: if there is a positive sample, then they should notify the International Tennis Federation (ITF) as well as the national federation within three days," he said.
"This is not the case here. As of today we have not received any statement from the doping officials, nor did the ITF. Today I called the ITF headquarters and they told me they know nothing about it.
"If WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) was behind the testing, then we would also have known something by now," Tarpishchev added.
"Otherwise, all these looks to me as pure fiction and fabrication of the facts."
Kuznetsova beat American Jessica Kirkland 6-1 6-1 in the first round of the Australian Open on Monday.
The tournament has been hit by doping scandals in the past decade. 1998 Australian Open champion Petr Korda was allowed to defend his title the following year despite testing positive for the steroid nandrolone.
Last year's tournament was overshadowed by a doping scandal involving Briton Greg Rusedski, who was later cleared of wrongdoing.
Last month Austrian tennis player Stefan Koubek was banned for three months after traces of triamcinolon acetonid were found in in urine in testing at the French Open last June.
He plans to appeal against the ITF ban saying he was given the substance in an injection on an injured wrist.
(Additional reporting by Gennady Fyodorov)
Interessant, dass die Belgier gerade jetzt kommen - wahrscheinlich weils neidisch sind weil keine Belgierin dabei sind [[herby]]
