Russia boasts of better replacements for banned meldonium

A Russian state medical agency says it has found new and improved alternatives to meldonium, the banned substance for which tennis star Maria Sharapova tested positive.

Federal Medical-Biological Agency head Vladimir Uiba says Russia has found "several drugs which are not banned and work significantly better than meldonium," in comments carried by Russian news agencies.

Uiba didn't name the new drugs and it wasn't immediately clear whether they are already being used by top Russian athletes. Uiba's agency is tasked with providing medical support to Russian national teams in many sports.

Sharapova was among over 100 athletes who tested positive after the heart drug meldonium was banned in sport last year.

Most of those were cleared because of evidence they had stopped taking meldonium before it was banned, though Sharapova was suspended because she had taken it after the cutoff date.

Numerous claims have been made over recent decades about meldonium, which is marketed for sufferers from heart and circulatory conditions, including that it can increase physical and mental endurance.

However, Russian officials have said it is not performance-enhancing in a sports context, and argued it prevents heart attacks under extreme stress.

Sharapova said last year she used meldonium for 10 years for reasons including a magnesium deficiency, irregular heart test results and a family history of diabetes.

Sharapova will return to the WTA Tour at a competition in Stuttgart on Apr. 26, the day her 15-month ban ends.

5 Russians banned for doping at Olympics, track worlds

Five Russian athletes have been given two-year doping bans for offenses at the 2012 Olympics and 2013 track and field world championships, the All-Russian Athletics Federation said yesterday.

The five include Antonina Krivoshapka, who won silver with the Russian 4x400 relay team at the Olympics, and Yevgenia Kolodko, who was the 2012 Olympic shot put silver medalist.

Both had previously been stripped of those medals by the International Olympic Committee.

Krivoshapka's ban means she is likely to be stripped of 4x400 gold and individual 400 bronze medals from the 2013 world championships, though the IAAF did not immediately confirm this.

That would elevate the US team of Jessica Beard, Natasha Hastings, Ashley Spencer and Francena McCorory to relay gold, with silver for Britain and bronze for France.

The Jamaican runner Stephanie McPherson would inherit Krivoshapka's individual 400 bronze.

Kolodko could lose a silver medal from the 2013 European indoor championship.

There are also two-year bans for pole vaulter Dmitry Starodubtsev, who was fourth at the Olympics and discus thrower Vera Ganeyeva, who was 23rd at the Olympics. Hammer thrower Anna Bulgakova was given a ban for failing a retest of the sample she gave when finishing fifth at the 2013 worlds.

The All-Russian Athletics Federation said in a statement that all five had "voluntarily admitted a violation of anti-doping rules" after their failed retests had come to light.

All five had tested positive for the banned steroid turinabol, which the former Moscow laboratory director Grigory Rodchenkov has said he gave to Russian athletes as part of a steroid cocktail in a wide-ranging doping operation.