Mumbai, Jan 14 India is currently placed second in the list of countries with the most athletes currently ineligible to participate in international events. But the outgoing president of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) Adille Sumariwala and World Championship bronze medallist Anju Bobby George feel this is actually a good thing that more people are getting caught, which indicates that more testing is being done to catch all the "crooks and culprits".
According to data made available by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for the year ending December 2024, Kenya tops the list with 119 cases while India is second at 108.
Russia is third in the countries with the most ineligible athletes at 73, Telecom Asia Sport (www.telecomasia.net) reported on Monday.
China, in contrast, has only 26 such cases, while the United States has only 16 such athletes.
In the last month or so, India has seen four athletes added to the list of those ineligible to participate in any event.
The AIU, an independent body set up to run the anti-doping programme for World Athletics, last week suspended Indian middle-distance runner Archana Jadhav for using a banned substance.
In December 2024, the AIU had sanctioned three Indians -- sprinter Ankit Kumar (100m, 200m), Vinit Rathi, who participates in 3000m steeplechase and 5000m, and Jeyavindhiya Jegadish, an Asian junior medallist in women's 400m and 400m hurdles -- for failing dope tests. Kumar has been suspended for four years, while the other two will be out for three years.
It is this rise in the number of doping cases that has recently prompted two-time Olympic medallist in javelin throw, Neeraj Chopra to flag doping as a major concern for Indian athletics.
"Nowadays doping is a big problem in India among our athletes. I want to tell them that once doping is in their mind, it gets hard in the future. They are unable to play at that level. They think that only doping can improve their performance, but that is not the truth. It is their hard work and self-belief, that proper guidance from the coach will take you forward," said Chopra recently.
Chopra, who won India's first gold medal in athletics in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and a silver medal at Paris 2024, has rightly flagged this issue as the number of positive doping cases has drastically risen in India.
There has been a steep rise in the number of ineligible athletes in the last two years in the top two offender countries -- Kenya and India.
While Kenya and India had 54 and 65 ineligible athletes, respectively, on 31 December 2022, the number has surged to 119 and 108, respectively, in the same period in 2024.
All in all, it paints a worrying picture for sports in India and if the trend continues, this problem is going to tarnish the country's image further. It should be a matter of concern for authorities, especially when India has shown interest in hosting the Summer Olympics of 2036.
"If more people are getting caught, it's good, which means that we are testing more, we are catching more, we are catching all the crooks and culprits. So I think it's a good sign that people know that over some time, you will get caught if you dope, and then that's the only way you will see a reduction in the long term," Sumariwala told Telecom Asia Sport.
Anju, India’s first athlete ever to win a medal at the 2003 World Athletics Championships, while lauding AFI for its efforts to educate the athletes, had some advice for the youngsters.
"Don’t suffer for life for short-term gain. Be wise," she said while advising them to avoid falling into the doping trap.
"We, at the Athletics Federation of India, have zero tolerance for doping. Doping is mostly done at the district level, where district coaches are responsible for even supplying banned substances to juniors, which is again an offence under the Juvenile Act," said Sumariwala.
He said making doping a criminal offence could be an effective way to tackle it, and the AFI is coordinating with the government to enhance the doping bill.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor