The General Director of the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA Oliver Niggli has released new interesting updates that closely concern the controversial Jannik Sinner’s doping issue.
At the end of November, the Court of Arbitration for Sport published the list of all the hearings that will take place in the coming months and up to February 11, 2025. Among these, the one concerning Jannik is not included and, therefore, WADA’s appeal on the Clostebol case – unless there are important developments in the coming days – will be discussed after that date.
In an interview with the AFP news agency, Niggli explained that WADA has decided to appeal because it believes there are responsibilities that an athlete must respect also towards his own team.
“There will be nothing by the end of the year. The decision was made that Sinner was not at fault. Our position is that there is still a responsibility of the athlete towards those around him. So it is this legal point that will be discussed at the CAS. We do not dispute the fact that it could have been contamination but we believe that the application of the rules does not correspond to the jurisprudence,” he said.
Niggli finally reiterated that protecting athletes is in the interest of every body linked to the world of sport.
“We must protect athletes. Personally, I think that protecting an athlete’s reputation should be our first concern. We live in a world where social media is what it is and makes a reputation go up in smoke in a very short time,” he explained.
Jannik Sinner, ATP Finals 2024© Stream screenshot
Meanwhile, Simone Vagnozzi, coach of the Italian, shared an interesting behind-the-scenes story of his collaboration with the 2-time Grand Slam champion. Since the Italian has been under the technical guidance of the coach, then later also assisted by Darren Cahill, he has reached the 1st position in the ATP ranking for the first time in his career, thanks to victories at the Australian Open and the US Open.
Directly from Dubai, where he is preparing the new season with Jannik, Vagnozzi talked about the season just gone by, perhaps unrepeatable.
“It was a crazy season with so many victories that no one expected, a superlative season. Now we are preparing to try to do even better. He is a phenomenon, he applies himself, he is polite, empathetic, resilient, he puts in the effort every day and obviously the results help him in this. It has been a long journey, so we cannot talk about a single episode that determined the turning point in Sinner’s career. Maybe I could say in 2023 in Beijing the victory at the China Open against Medvedev or at the beginning of 2024 with the first slam the Australian Open that gave us the right push,” he revealed.
The Italian coach then told an anecdote about his relationship with Sinner, regarding an argument between them.
“It’s a good question but I wouldn’t call it an argument, if anything there was some discussion, some confrontation. Recently on the court in Shanghai I had to reprimand him for an impatient gesture. But every day is different when you play, so it’s okay to let off steam, but Sinner has exemplary behavior in every situation,” he added.
Tennis World USA