More than medals

These have been athletics darkest decades. Evidence of doping,or the use of banned performance-enhancing substances,has been lengthening its shadow on track and field events ever since Canadas Ben Johnson was stripped of his Olympics 100m gold medal almost within hours of breaking the world record at Seoul in 1988. With improvements in diagnostic tests and more proactive investigations,others too have been retrospectively relieved of their titles most notably American Marion Jones,once hailed as the greatest athlete of her generation,who lost the three gold and two bronze medals she had won at the 2000 Olympics. The prevalence of doping or the suspicion of it is so overwhelming that now even those who have cleared tests are viewed with suspicion,and at the great championships sprinters have lost their celebrity status.

The Indian sport establishment cannot affect surprise at the instances of doping that have come to light these past few days,with one after another athlete testing positive for anabolic steroid use. Among them are Ashwini Akkunji,the golden girl of the moment with her medals at the Commonwealth and Asian Games last year,and her colleagues on the celebrated 4x400m relay squad. With the scale of possible offences growing,coach Yuri Ogorodnik and two of his assistants have been sacked. The athletes claim that they did not intentionally consume banned substances,and that it could be that their nutritional supplements had been contaminated. Cases will,as they must,be investigated individually,but the number indicates complicity and callousness at many levels. In fact,suspicions have been rampant not just about widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs,but also about a systemic support for the practice.

Enforcing a zero-tolerance regime of surprise checks is an obvious requirement. But athletes and their support staff also need to be updated constantly on training practices. Just the other day athletics was Indias good news story,a story of aspiration. That its changing so fast is sad. It must also serve as an alarm that we can no longer postpone the enforcement of best practices.