Opinion Doping is not the seedy underbelly of Indian sport — it’s an open secret

A steeplechaser at the Delhi athletics championship crossed the finish line and kept running, fleeing dope testers who had turned up the day after a tell-tale video of doping syringes was circulated. Another sprinter ran the 100m alone on the eight tracks, as seven other entrants never turned up, fearing they would be tested. Amidst these bizarre scenes at the JN Stadium, lay the tragedy of India’s doping menace in a sport that offers fantasies of dizzying success. Athletes from school-level meets upwards are risking their bodily health with amateur doping practices, hoping they find breakthrough success in terms of jobs or spots in national teams, knowing that sophisticated cheats have gotten away in the past. When the testers show up, the farce of just one athlete willing to run the race points to a deep rot where the honest runner becomes ineligible for a medal because the others ran away from testing.

Pictures of syringes in stadium bathrooms have been familiar for decades. Yet, the National Anti Doping Agency, with its offices in JN Stadium, was nowhere in the lead-up to the event. When officials did turn up for testing, the results were immediate. Competitions in remote corners of India take place without anti-doping officials present, and the numbers of those failing tests will be much higher should they come under the scanner.

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At the core of this corruption is encouragement of coaches and parents for quick-fixes, and the lethargy of India’s anti-doping machinery. Diligence in keeping the sport clean by instilling fear of being tested will remain as important as efforts to stop players from taking the quick and treacherous route to success. Doping is not the seedy underbelly of Indian sport, it’s an open secret. More stringent testing can send a message, as Delhi proved. If only it didn’t take a viral video of syringes to nudge the testers to show up.