Taurasi linked to modafinil

NEW YORK – WNBA standout and former UConn star Diana Taurasi tested positive for modafinil while playing in a professional women’s league in Turkey, the country’s basketball federation said Friday.

Neither her lawyer nor her team, Fenerbahce, would confirm that Taurasi tested positive for the stimulant, which has been involved in several major doping cases, including that of U.S. sprinter Kelli White.

Modafinil is used to counter excessive sleepiness from narcolepsy, shift-work sleep disorder or sleep apnea.

The Turkish Basketball Federation statement cited a report from the lab at Hacettepe University and said: “… the urine sample taken from Diana Taurasi as a part of the regular process, after a game between Istanbul University and Fenerbahce … tested positive for modafinil, one of the illegal substances on WADA’s banned stimulants list, according to preliminary test results.” WADA is the World Anti-Doping Agency.

“We’re not going to confirm what the drug is,” Taurasi’s lawyer, Howard Jacobs, said. “We’ll revisit it after the ‘B’ sample returns. They shouldn’t be speaking about it at all.”