British tennis player Tara Moore has been handed a four-year doping ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), overturning an earlier independent tribunal decision that cleared her of wrongdoing. The ban follows an appeal by the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) after prohibited anabolic steroids nandrolone and boldenone were found in her system in June 2022.
Moore, a former British number one in doubles, had maintained she never knowingly took banned substances. An independent tribunal initially concluded that contaminated meat consumed at a Colombian tournament was the source. However, CAS ruled that Moore failed to prove the nandrolone concentration was consistent with contaminated meat ingestion and that the anti-doping rule violation was not intentional.
The 32-year-old lost 19 months in the process before being cleared, but CAS upheld the ITIA's appeal against the 'no fault or negligence' ruling. Moore's cross-appeal seeking to dismiss the ITIA appeal was declared inadmissible. Her four-year ineligibility period begins July 15, with credit for provisional suspension already served.
ITIA CEO Karen Moorhouse stated that the bar for appealing was high, but independent scientific advice indicated Moore did not adequately explain the high nandrolone level in her sample. Moore had previously described seeing her reputation, ranking, and livelihood 'slowly trickling away' during her initial suspension.
