“Anti-doping rules need to be clear so that the public and the athletic can understand exactly where they stand. The problem with meldonium is that it is a grey area: does it count as deliberate performance enhancement or is it part of marginal gains, like optimising iron levels in the blood? And in terms of how it behaves in the body, there were always going to be challenges because it operates at a cellular level. There could be significant variation between individuals and the research needed could take many months.”

Wada disputed reports on Wednesday that there would be a “meldonium amnesty”. Yet its own document stated that “a finding of no fault or negligence” could now be made in certain circumstances – specifically when “the athlete could not reasonably have known or suspected that the substance would still be present in his/her body on or after Jan 1, 2016”.