Sports and Performance Enhancing Drugs (Doping)

[prasen9]

And now the other shoe drops for Sanjitha Chanu. B Sample returns positive.

Again, NADA's stupidity and laxness towards following proper procedure either damaged the career of one of our top hurdlers Jithin Paul or failed to catch doping cheat Jithin Paul. Either way, NADA is terribly incompetent. I hope Jithin revives his career and does well, assuming he is innocent. It is heart-wrenching to hear this happen to an athlete if he is indeed innocent.

[Mugundan]

And now the other shoe drops for Sanjitha Chanu. B Sample returns positive.

Again, NADA's stupidity and laxness towards following proper procedure either damaged the career of one of our top hurdlers Jithin Paul or failed to catch doping cheat Jithin Paul. Either way, NADA is terribly incompetent. I hope Jithin revives his career and does well, assuming he is innocent. It is heart-wrenching to hear this happen to an athlete if he is indeed innocent.

It is worth noting what one of Paul's team-mate had to say about the drug, the bag and its origin when the story broke first!
https://www.thehindu.com/sport/athletic ... 577660.ece

[prasen9]

Before it was banned, the players took it. That is perfectly fine, if the story in Mugu's article is true. So, Jithin was sloppy and did not dispose of it. He should have been more careful. As should all athletes with respect to what they have in their rooms and what they are ingesting into their bodies. Anyway, NADA fluffed protocol and so the finding does not hold. Irresponsible behaviour all around

[Mugundan]

Paul kept it in a bag for three years when he knew it was banned. That is difficult to believe. More interesting is Paul denied that there ever was meldonium in his bag or room (while his team-mate told the reporter at that time that he did have it and used it). One can always say "it was there in my bag but I never used it." It might be true or untrue but there is no provision in rules to reprieve. As for protocol, I wouldn't fault NADA. They did what they felt was the right thing. Ideally, it could have been done with the help of police. But there is nothing in the rules that says you can't do it on your own; there is nothing either which says you can!

[prasen9]

NADA or anyone cannot just go into anyone's room and check out things. I believe you need a search warrant before you can go in. NADA should respect the law of the land. Although I admit the right to privacy and unreasonable search is not very clearly stated in Indian Penal code but courts have generally upheld that (implicit) right.

On the other hand, you are right in effectively implying that Jithin was perhaps using it in the last three years. I have bags sitting in my closet for years, which I open and find travel clothes, etc. But, they are not banned items. When things are banned, you should check and clear your room. And, thus, no harm was done to him. He got off easily.

What I am saying is that NADA should respect all laws of the India and be careful with respect to protocol, protection of samples, etc. in order to catch cheats and not implicate honest ones. They have been sloppy in the past letting players slip out as it happened here.

[Mugundan]

Yes, NADA has been sloppy and had allowed dopers to slip away as in this case also. Hopefully they have learnt a lesson from this episode of "search and seizure". It would seem difficult to involve police and other agencies if, say, an anti-doping agency has to search the bag/s of an athlete at the training ground or during competitions. There won't be any time to requisition the services of police (especially our police in these matters). The frequent reports about used syringes and vials at venues holding athletics competitions in our country should be proof enough that doping is rampant.

[prasen9]

Doping is rampant. World-wide half the athletes said they have doped or are doping in an anonymous survey.

In a stadium, you can check anyone's bag. The conditions for entry into the stadium and participating in a meet can be that you will be searched. In this case, your choice is to accept the terms and then you can be searched at any time. There would be no legal problems.

You can also make all players sign a waiver allowing searching of their rooms especially in government training facilities without notice and without a warrant or police, with the sole purpose of checking for drugs. Any other items obtained or information obtained can not be legally used. Once you have their consent, then you can do that. NADA should make associations require its supported players to sign that. Then, it would be legal.

[Mugundan]

Doping is of course rampant across the world in the world of athletics, weightlifting, cycling etc. India was No. 3 for three years running from 2013 in this respect in the WADA lists, slipping to joint No. 6 with Russia in 2016. Athletics has either topped or has been second to weightlifting in the Indian doping charts.
Search of bags etc is common in big meets in India, say for example an international cricket match. But it is not there for smaller sports events including athletics. A meet at Patiala, for example, will hardly have 10 policemen at the NIS ground, mainly to secure easy entry for the VIP politicians. This can of course be tried out.
Signing a waiver is one thing that NADA can try out, There too there would be a hundred different legal opinion. But they can try that if they are interested.
Coming back to doping in Indian athletics, the main problem with our athletes not being able to perform at the same level as they have done at home during Olympics etc is doping. There has been some change in that trend in CWG and Asian Games this year, but come Olympics in 2020 that trend would be visible once again except in the case of exceptionally-talented athletes who perform regularly at the international level and maintain a certain consistency.
No athlete making the final (2000), one athlete plus one relay team making it (2004), none making it (2008), two of them through to final (2012) and one doing it (2016) in Olympics despite world-class performances at home suggest doping is at the root of it. One gets the feeling the authorities are no longer bothered about this aspect as long as medals can be won!

[prasen9]

Well, the authorities caught a few this year. Inderjeet, Dharamveer.

I think nobody posted about the case of our steeple-chaser Naveen Kumar Dagar here.

[Mugundan]

Well, the authorities caught a few this year. Inderjeet, Dharamveer.

I think nobody posted about the case of our steeple-chaser Naveen Kumar Dagar here.

Inderjeet, Dharambir and Priyanka Panwar were caught in 2016 prior to Olympics. Dharambir (second offence) is out for eight years. Priyanka has been given eight years (second offence) but is fighting an appeal. Inderjeet was suspended for four years, but he is also fighting an appeal.
Dagar's case was reported by several publications. It came from a sample collected at the inter-State at Guwahati. Almost around the same time, another case was also reported, that of javelin thrower Amit Kumar. This was a test conducted by the AIU (IAAF) in Finland.
https://www.thehindu.com/sport/athletic ... 565955.ece

[prasen9]

Thanks for the clarifications. Yes, Amit, the javelin thrower was caught in Finland.

I do not know why in the Asian Games very few people are caught while in the Olympics many more (Asians) are. Or it seems that way.

[Mugundan]

Thanks for the clarifications. Yes, Amit, the javelin thrower was caught in Finland.

I do not know why in the Asian Games very few people are caught while in the Olympics many more (Asians) are. Or it seems that way.

Asian Games this year (perhaps last time also and even before that) had tests at random. Not even all gold medallists were tested, say at least in sport like athletics, weightlifting, swimming, cycling etc. Olympics, on the other hand, has tests for 1 to 5 plus random. The chances of someone getting caught gets increased. Plus Olympics started testing about one month before the Games (Games period they call) while this was restricted to around one week in Asian Games.
Asian Games spends very less money for anti-doping.
Olympics also has had not much success in actual in-competition testing for the past few editions but 2008 and 2012 re-tests brought more than a 100 positive tests or somewhere close to that number.(Chinese, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Azerbaijanis, Russians etc dominated that list of positive cases from re-tests). In any case, Olympics, because of its stricter monitoring, better intelligence and more funding will always net more cheats than Asian Games.
This time, I think, Asian Games has had one positive test in-competition and another one before the games began. Pathetic.

[Mugundan]

In a "first" for an Indian athlete at the National level, Monika Chaudhary who was dropped at the last moment before the Asian Games from the Indian team, who then went to court and had a retrial arranged, has tested positive for EPO. Monika was apparently tested at the retrial ordered by a court. She clocked poorly in the 1500 retrial in Bhutan and again another retrial in New Delhi. But it is unfathomable that someone would come to a retrial, just days before the Games, injected with EPO!
The focus also shifts to the Thimpu camp. Was EPO available in Bhutan? Did Monika get her quota from Bhutan? Were others involved? EPO is also available in India without too much difficulty (any prescription drug can be had across India without hassles) .
Let's hope NADA and AFI will get to the bottom of this EPO trail. Previously, two male athletes were caught for EPO in an institutional meet in 2015 and slapped with two-year suspensions.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spo ... 989295.cms

[Mugundan]

How NADA has been functioning; how it has tried to keep overall positive numbers down; how athletics is being sidelined for testing; how suddenly hockey seems to be the most doped sport etc had been brought out in this interesting story in the Indian Express.
https://goo.gl/CVYhtF

(the original link was faulty)

[Mugundan]

Nirmala Sheoran and four other Indian athletes test positive in re-tests ordered by WADA after negative reports in New Delhi lab
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/spo ... 822605.cms