Salwan plan ‘swept under the carpet’

‘‘They (the ministry) only acted on part of my report on the Sunita Rani issue: that there were several discrepancies in the urine tests conducted at the Busan laboratory. I had said in the report that it would not be proper at that stage to hold Sunita Rani guilty and had suggested to the AAFi to challenge the Busan lab test results,’’ Salwan recalled.

However, his indictment of the system and recommendations for its clean-up have been completely ignored by the administrators. ‘‘One of the suggestions was to carry out regular tests on all sportspersons from time to time and to impose severe penalties on the guilty,’’ Salwan said, adding that he had even recommended ‘‘recovery of all financial benefits to not only the guilty athletes but also their coaches.’’

An athlete alone could not be held responsible for testing positive, he said. ‘‘There are so many people involved in the process. Since a lot of money is involved in present-day international sports, athletes, coaches and even administrators play a big role in off-the-field activities. An athlete is under the vigil of his/her coaches for 24 hours. Therefore, I feel that the coach must be aware of the activities of his ward. It’s a vicious circle. If a coach is corrupt, I fail to understand why a federation keeps him for so long.’’ Salwan sees no purpose being solved by the charges and counter-charges, levelled by the athletes and their coaches and officials. ‘‘The system has to be corrected first. Indian athletes falling in the dope net is a shameful thing,’’ he said.