"It's my team so me basically who brought her this collagen": Coach Patrick Mouratoglou admits responsibility for Simona Halep failed doping test
WTA
Simona Halep will head to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in order to either reduce her doping ban or get it rescinded and coach Patrick Mouratoglou has admitted fault in the former World No.1 getting to this point in the first place.
As per documents, it was a member of Mouratoglou's team that recommended the collagen that seemingly was used by Halep which alerted the positive test, so being part of his team and brand, he said it is his fault.
Taking to his Instagram in a video, the renowned former coach of Serena Williams and Holger Rune who coached Halep until her ban in 2022 called her an innocent victim once more and that it has opened his eyes that anyone could fall fowl of this if products that are labelled clean are in fact contaminated.
"I feel confident for the future of Simona (Halep) with her appeal to the CAS because it's an independent tribunal. We've been able to establish where the contamination comes from. So we proposed her to take collagen and we brought her collagen from a company. This collagen happened to be contaminated, there was no way to know it," said Mouratoglou.
"But I feel responsible for what happened because it's my team. So me basically who brought her this collagen. We have done all the possible tests to establish that we are talking about a contamination.
"I'm very confident that this independent tribunal will recognise that she never did doping. She's a victim and she has to come back to the court and be able to compete as soon as possible."
"It opened my eyes to the fact that any athlete can become contaminated tomorrow because apparently, this happens more and more. We're talking about extremely low levels of something. It has zero effect, but you happen to have in your system something that shouldn't be there."
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"Your career is stopped for a period of time that is extremely long. It can affect your whole career, it affects your reputation for a very unfair reason because you have done nothing. The companies that you decide to go with for supplements, you have to be sure at 100% that this cannot happen."
Samuel GillEditor-in-Chief
Samuel Gill is the Chief Content Officer (CCO) of TennisUpToDate.com, a role he has held since 2020. He is responsible for editorial governance across the platform, including setting content standards, overseeing accuracy and consistency, and guiding long-term editorial strategy. Since joining, he has contributed more than 10,000 articles and editorial pieces across the TennisUpToDate network, playing a central role in the daily operation and development of the site.
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