Barely two years after weightlifter Madasamy tested positive at the Manchester Commonwealth Games, the Sports Authority of India’s Dope Testing Laboratory here is back in the news. Once again, for all the wrong reasons. According to sources, SAI’s Teams Wing has written to Director General J P Singh, requesting him to order a probe into how Pratima tested positive after being ‘cleared’ by its laboratory before she left for Athens. Like Pratima Kumari, Madasamy too was given a clean chit by SAI doctors at the Delhi lab, only to hit the dope radar when the world was watching. Then, SAI Director General Shekhar Dutt had blamed it on urine sample labels being swapped. This time, after Pratima’s test on August 12, there are no answers—yet. The Teams Wing letter to the SAI DG has also suggested that the probe be conducted by someone other than the two officials currently in charge—Madanesh Kumar Mishra, CEO of the dope testing lab, and M.P. Ganesh, ED (Teams). Mishra, incidentally, is a finance professional. When contacted, he refused to comment on Pratima’s case, saying he needed permission to do so from Singh. But sources added that all the lifters, who were training at Minsk (Belarus), were summoned to New Delhi in the last week of July for a dope test and ‘cleared’ by August 2. TURN QUOTES
