British player Tara Moore has been cleared of committing a doping offence and is free to resume her career after an investigation lasting more than 18 months.
The 31-year-old was provisionally suspended in May 2022 after testing positive for the anabolic steroids boldenone and nandrolone at a tournament in Colombia.
Moore immediately protested her innocence and an independent tribunal has now determined that contaminated meat was the source of the prohibited substances and she bore no fault or negligence.
Moore was ranked 83rd in the world at the time of her suspension and was Britain’s highest-ranked doubles player but she is now unranked having been unable to play since.
In a post on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, Moore wrote: “19 months. 19 months of lost time. 19 months of my reputation, my ranking, my livelihood slowly trickling away. 19 months of emotional distress.
“19 months and my team and I are finally given the answer we knew from the very start. It’s going to take more than 19 months to rebuild, repair and recuperate from what we’ve been through, but we will come back stronger than ever.”
She is not the first player to fail a doping test in South America having eaten contaminated meat, and the International Tennis Integrity Agency said in a statement: “The ITIA has issued, and will continue to issue, information concerning the risks of meat contamination in certain parts of the world to all players.”
Moore reached her second WTA Tour final at the tournament in Bogota where she tested positive.
