NEW DELHI: Some of the country's promising athletes in different disciplines have returned positive for banned substances, including high-end drugs like metenolone, methandienone, stanozolol and metandienone – all anabolic steroids.
According to the information available with TOI, 10 athletes from weightlifting, athletics, wrestling, cycling, judo, football, wushu and lawn bowls disciplines have failed the dope test, raising a big question mark on the national sports federations (NSFs) and coaches' failure to curb the doping menace at the domestic level.
The urine samples of these athletes were taken during the Gujarat National Games - a sporting spectacle after the govt ensured the participation of several top Indian athletes - which was held across six cities of Gujarat from September 27 to October 10, 2022.
National Anti-Doping Agency (Nada) has duly charged all the athletes, except two, with doping violations, which includes mandatory provisional suspension. The samples of Kerala footballer Viknesh and West Bengal's lawn bowls player Soumen Banerjee have returned positive for terbutaline and eplerenone, respectively – both specified substances which don't call for automatic suspension.
Coincidentally, seven out of the 10 dope cheats had finished on the podium during the National Games. All athletes are staring at a ban ranging from two to four years if they fail to prove their innocence before the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP).
Among those who have failed the dope test are men's 55kg silver-winning weightlifter Veerjeet Kaur (ligandrol), women's 49kg silver medallist weightlifter Khumukcham Sanjita Chanu (drostanolone metabolite), women's 100m bronze medallist sprinter Diandra Valladares (stanozolol metabolites), men's 97kg greco-roman gold and silver-winning wrestlers, Deepanshu and Ravi Rajpal (both metandienone), Kerala's bronze medal-winning men's football team forward Viknesh (terbutaline), men's lawn bowls silver medallist Soumen Banerjee (eplerenone), wushu player Harshit Namdeo (mephentermine), judoka Navroop Kaur (metenolone) and cyclist Roobalpreet Singh (metandienone).
The samples of all these players were collected by Nada's dope control officers (DCOs) between September 30 and October 10 last year.
Gymnast Dipa gets a 21-month ineligibility suspension from ITA
The International Testing Agency (ITA) on Friday reported that Indian gymnast Dipa Karmakar has been sanctioned with a 21-month period of ineligibility after testing positive for prohibited substance higenamine.
"The ITA confirms that Dipa Karmakar has been suspended for a 21-month period, effective until July 10, 2023 after testing positive for higenamine (S3. Beta-2 Agonists as per the World Anti-Doping Agency prohibited list). The positive sample was collected on behalf of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) in the scope of an out-of-competition control on October 11, 2021. The case was resolved via a case resolution agreement pursuant to article 10.8.2 of the FIG Anti-Doping Rules (FIG ADR, and equivalent provision in the WADA Code). The athlete's results have been disqualified from October 11 2021 onwards," the ITA said in a statement.
