She's been prescribed it for ten years. They outlaw it on Jan 1st and test her three weeks later.

I'm no fan of drug cheats, but this one seems a little harsh at first glance.

The change was apparently notified on the 16th of September last year to become effective on 1 January 2016 so there was a reasonable amount of notice of the change given.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that the athlete themselves may not keep absolutely up to date with everything on the prohibited list but it's the sort of thing you'd expect their coach to be keeping an eye on, especially for any medication the individual has been taking long term.

Given what the medication is ordinarily taken for I'd like to know why she was taking it.

The explanation I heard was it was something to do with her having a family history of diabetes. I can see nothing in the listed affects of the drug that would have anything to do with preventing or delaying the onset of that condition. And you'd expect a world class professional tennis player to be way down the list of people to develop that condition naturally once they get to adulthood anyway.

EDIT : Some more details. She's not the first athlete to test positive since it was recategorised.

Hilarious - `Porsche, owned by VW (who cheated on performance tests) says it can no longer be associated with Maria Sharapova (who cheated on performance tests).

Meldonium company says normal course of treatment is four to six weeks | Sport | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/m ... -sharapova

Seriously. Who cares? I certainly don't

Well, apart from the obvious, she's been the only one presenting any sort of significant challenge to the Williams sisters in the past decade. If she's given a four year ban, women's tennis is basically going to be procession until at least Serena decides to jack it in. As a fan and watcher of sport in general, this bothers me.