Three Rio qualified Olympians issued notice by national doping agency

While two of the Olympians failed to update their whereabouts information, the third one was not available at the place and time provided when testers went to collect samples. In fact, one of them has been found to have two instances of Whereabouts Failure.

For a doping violation to be registered, a sportsperson should have missed at least three tests or three whereabouts filing failures within a period of 12 months. National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) director general Navin Agarwal confirmed that three show-cause notices had indeed been issued to members of India’s Olympic party.

“We have issued three show-cause notices to athletes who will be participating in the Rio Olympics. But I cannot reveal which sport they are from and their names. We will also be shortly issuing a show-cause notice to a fourth athlete. However, none of these athletes have had a doping-rule violation,” Agarwal said.

Sportspersons whose names have been included in the testing pool have to provide their whereabouts and they will have to be available for dope testing at the specified time and place mentioned by them, according to the World Anti-Doping Code. The NADA director general, however, confirmed that till date no Indian athlete bound for Rio had failed a dope test. Results of the samples collected during the athletic team’s training-cum-competition stint in Spala, Poland, are still awaited. “All of India’s Rio-bound athletes have been tested. One-third of our athletes have been tested while they have been training abroad. For their sake, we have hired external agencies to collect samples abroad. I am confident that the Indian contingent at the Rio Games will be clean and will not take any shortcuts,” Agarwal said.

India was ranked third among countries with doping rule violations behind Russia and Italy according to a list issued by WADA earlier this year. “We also want to get rid of this status as the country which is third in the doping list. We will continue to work towards ensuring that all our athletes are clean,”Agarwal added.

However, the newly-appointed NADA DG said that they were faced with certain deficiencies with regards to sample collection, result management and timely appeals as the national agency was still in its ‘infancy’ but added that the two-year memorandum of understanding with the Australian Anti-Doping Agency would help bolster their efforts.

Agarwal also said that the main focus would be to educate athletes. “Many players are not aware and even coaches prescribe certain supplements to their wards to enhance their performance not realising that in the long run it’s harmful to the health of the athlete.

It is not easy to get away with doping. This is what we need to inculcate when the players are young.” Agarwal also wants to check the easy availability of contaminated nutritional supplements in the open market.