New Delhi: National Anti-Doping Agency Director General Navin Agarwal on Wednesday said that all the Rio Olympics bound sportspersons have undergone testing for banned substances and they are dope-free.
Agarwal, however, conceded that there were issues regarding testing of a few Rio-bound sportspersons as they were not available at their “whereabouts” provided by them as mandated under the Anti-Doping Administration Management System (ADAMS) of the World Anti-Doping Agency but NADA was able to get their testing done later on.
“All Rio-bound athletes have been tested. Some of the athletes have been tested at least once, some have been tested twice and some thrice. Some athletes could not be tested on the second occasion because they were training abroad and in their case they have been tested at least once,” Agarwal, who joined last month, told PTI in an interview.
“For those training abroad, we have hired some agencies to collect samples there (abroad) and we have tested the samples of all these athletes,” he said.
“I am quite confident that the Indian contingent at the Rio Olympics will have no doping violation by any of them this time. We also hope there will be no doping violation from other countries. Since we are very strict as far as our athletes are concerned, we also expect same strictness from other countries so that there is fair play,” said the 1986 batch senior IPS officer of Jammu and Kashmir cadre.
The Indian contingent at the 2004 Olympics was rocked by doping as two weightlifters — Sanamacha Chanu and Pratima Kumari — tested positive for banned substances while another lifter Monika Devi was barred from leaving for 2008 Olympics just a day before she was to board the Beijing flight. There was, however, no such incident prior and during the 2012 London Olympics.
Asked specifically if some sportspersons have resisted from undergoing tests by not being present at their “whereabouts”, Agarwal answered in the affirmative.
“There have been a few cases, though I cannot disclose them. In such cases we issue notices and three such whereabouts failure is treated as a doping violation.
“There have been instances of one or two whereabouts failures regarding a few Rio-bound sportspersons but till now there is no instance of three whereabouts failures and so there is no doping violation so far,” he said.
Sportspersons included in the reserve testing pool need to provide their ‘whereabouts’ and they will have to be available for dope testing at specified times.
Agarwal also confirmed that discus thrower Seema Punia had undergone dope test recently at her “hometown”. Seema had recently cancelled a press conference citing an impending dope test.
“She (Seema) had given her consent for a dope test and it was organised in one of those days in her hometown. I don’t want to say further on this but a dope test was conducted on her. A dope test does not take much time and there was nothing extraordinary in conducting a dope test,” said the NADA chief who had been Director General Youth Services and Sports in Jammu and Kashmir.
India was recently named as the third most doped country in the world in a report published by WADA for cases related to 2014 and Agarwal said it was not a happy situation and he would work to get the country rid of that tag.
“NADA is still in its infancy and some of our procedures have been copied from WADA. As a national agency, there is still a lot to do. We also want to get rid of this tag of third most doped country in the world. We are not happy with this situation. As a national policy, we are committed to a dope-free sports,” he said.
Agarwal laid out some of the targets he would want to achieve during his tenure for which he said the government would need to increase the budgetary allocation drastically.
“First, we have to spread awareness that athletes should not use doping as shortcut to success. It is harmful to their health as well to their career. We want to educate the athletes regarding this on a massive scale and bring awareness so that we can prevent doping,” he said. (PTI)
