EHF Court of Handball releases decision following doping violations

Following positive doping tests at the Women’s 19 EHF EURO in Slovenia (7 July to 6 August 2017), the EHF Court of Handball has released its decision on doping violations committed by three members of the silver-medal-winning Russian team: Antonina Skorobogatchenko, Maria Duvakina and Mariia Dudina.

The issue was considered by members of the EHF Court of Handball based on statements of the parties involved, including a hearing held in Vienna, as well as documents provided and the applicable EHF regulations.

Positive tests

The doping tests were carried out by the EHF Anti-doping Unit as part of its in-competition testing programme and analysed at a World Anti-doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratory.

The samples provided by all three players contained the metabolic modulator Meldonium, which is listed under Class S4 of the 2017 WADA Prohibited List.

One player tested positive in the main round for the banned substance and two further players provided positive tests in the final round of the competition.

The EHF Court of Handball imposed a provisional suspension on all the three players in September 2017.

Decision

The EHF Court of Handball decided that the three players had committed a violation of Article 2.1 of the EHF Regulations for Anti-doping.

The Panel noted that the players did not knowingly intend to cheat when ingesting the prohibited substance and that the players had established that they had not intentionally taken the banned substance. The fact that the players also admitted the violation promptly was also taken into account.

It was therefore concluded that there were legitimate grounds to reduce the standard period of ineligibility.

As a result, all three players will be suspended for a period of 20 months from participating in any handball activities starting from the date of the collection of the samples. The period of provisional suspension imposed on 12 September 2017 will be credited.

The three players will forfeit their silver medals won at the Women’s 19 EHF EURO in 2017,

According to Article 39 of the EHF Legal Regulations, the decision of the EHF Court of Handball may be appealed to the EHF Court of Appeal by the parties by 26 January 2018.

Further sanctions against federation pending

According to Article 10 of the EHF Regulations for Anti-doping, if more than two members of a team are found to have committed an anti-doping rule violation during an EHF competition period, the competent legal body shall also impose an appropriate sanction on the federation.

For this reason, legal proceedings have also been initiated against the Handball Federation of Russia with a decision expected in the next few months.

Media enquiries:

JJ Rowland
Head of EHF Media and Communications
Tel. +43 1 80151 167
Email: rowland@eurohandball.com