Another twist occurs in Brit's doping case as a four-year ban is handed down

Tara Moore. (Getty/George Wood)

Despite originally being cleared of an anti-doping violation, Britain's Tara Moore has copped a four-year ban from tennis after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) confirmed that she had "failed to establish that it was not intentional".

The 32-year-old breached Articles 2.1 and 2.2 of the 2022 Tennis Anti-Doping Program (TADP) after her system contained Nandrolone metabolites and Boldenone and its metabolite after consuming contaminated meat, which are prohibited on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) list.

The saga dragged on for the next 19 months, which prevented her from taking the court, but her doping charges were dropped in December 2023, deemed to have borne "no fault or negligence" by an independent tribunal.

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However, the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) opted to appeal the decision, and the CAS agreed with their findings.

Soon after the hearing's conclusion, CAS released a statement, reading: "After reviewing the scientific and legal evidence, the majority of the CAS panel considered that the player did not succeed in proving that the concentration of nandrolone in her sample was consistent with the ingestion of contaminated meat.

"The panel concluded that Ms Moore failed to establish that the ADRV [anti-doping rule violation] was not intentional. The appeal by the ITIA is therefore upheld and the decision rendered by the independent tribunal is set aside."

ITIA Chief Executive Karen Moorehouse explained the ruling and attempted to provide clarification.

"Our bar for appealing a first-instance decision is high, and the decision is not taken lightly," she said.

"In this case, our independent scientific advice was that the player did not adequately explain the high level of nandrolone present in their sample. Today’s ruling is consistent with this position."

Moore featured on The First Serve's 'The Grind' podcast as she described her instant reaction after reading an email notifying her of an immediate suspension.

"I think anyone who has lived their life the way I have, in the sense that maybe not achieved everything I wanted to results-wise or that people have expected, I've always done it with integrity and the willingness to watch the sport grow," she said.

"I've always been a strong advocate for the improvement of the sport, and I've always spoken up for people who don't have a voice.

"It was just such a shock, and it blindsided me completely because I disassociate from this side of the game so much. The anti-doping side, the corruption side; It's something I've never even thought about because it's something so distant from me.

"It was surreal. It's really difficult to understand at the beginning how and why it's happening to you.

"If I was taking a steroid [and I] injected it or ingested it, I would know straight away how it's in my system. But when you aren't ingesting it or injecting it, I had no idea it was in my system, so figuring out how this got into my system felt like an impossible task.

"It was scary because you're going into something so unknown. This was so foreign to me, I had no idea."

She was once Britain's top-ranked doubles player, but now Moore has plummeted to No.187.

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