"Where it is right to stop": WADA director hints at possible changes in rules which may affect Jannik Sinner's doping case

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general Olivier Niggli has made an interesting comment which might have an impact on the case of Jannik Sinner. The 23-year-old, who is already regarded as one of the best players currently playing in men’s tennis in the singles category, has been in the news for wrong reasons this year after testing positive for banned substance.

Interestingly, Sinner managed to escape a ban after the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) accepted the player’s counsel response, which stated that the availability of the substance in a minimal quantiy in the player’s sample was because of receiving a cream to treat an injury. The case once again gathered attention after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed against the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) and demanded a two-year suspension for the player.

The ITIA’s decision received criticism from certain quarters of the tennis community who demanded a more uniform treatment of every player involved in such cases. WADA’s director general Niggli has been recently interviewed by the French publication L’Équipe where he talked about possible changes of rules in the future to avoid players getting away with little contamination.

"Today there is a contamination problem,” he said. “This does not mean that there are more cases of this kind than in the past, the fact is that laboratories are more efficient in detecting even infinitesimal quantities of substances. The quantities are so small that you can get contaminated by doing harmless things. The truth is that we hear a lot of stories and I understand the public opinion that can end up thinking that we take everything. With thresholds we would not have seen all these cases. What we need to understand is whether we are ready to accept microdosing and where it is right to stop. A working table will be created precisely for this type of reflection.”