Opinion India’s record on doping is a cause for worry. No medals are better than tainted ones in sport
Young athletes, sometimes misled by greedy coaches, at other times risking their bodies and future knowingly, are the ultimate tragedy of these cold anti-doping results.
No medals are better than tainted ones in sport. 
Two national-level Indian sprinters and two throwers who represented India at the Tokyo Olympics, have tested positive on the anti-doping regulations in the last few months — red flags that the country can ill afford to ignore. When Neeraj Chopra won a historic gold medal at the 2020 Games, the soaring javelin launched India into a dizzy orbit of unprecedented success in track & field, the absolute royalty of Olympic sports. Dope positives returned by elite athletes just a few months before the Commonwealth Games, casts a dark shadow on the credibility of the sport that Chopra so magnificently elevated into the stratosphere. The follow-up in development of this discipline in which India is throwing up enthusiastic jumpers, runners and throwers looking to compete with the best, threatens to turn into a minefield that will need to be carefully negotiated.
The dope positives are not terribly new in the country’s sporting ecosystem. India has ranked notoriously in the Top 3 of the world’s biggest dope cheats— alongside Russia, Kenya and recently, Italy, for a few years now. Inter-police and university meets, even district level athletics competitions and junior races, are known for that shameful obligatory photograph of syringes lying about that emerges inevitably from across the country. It is fairly well-known that athletes dabble with banned substances seeking immediate results, and employment opportunities arising out of those tainted but uncaught, performances. If they make the international grade, it’s not unheard of that either their timings drop at the biggest stage, or a positive turns up, like it did when international testers reached Kamalpreet Kaur, the discus-thrower, just as the qualification season is underway. India’s domestic anti-doping mechanisms have failed to catch athletes at the base, and international embarrassments are almost routine now. Eyebrows have tired by now, being raised every time a suddenly explosive performance catapults new names into the big Games, where they underwhelm with forgettable numbers. Young athletes, sometimes misled by greedy coaches, at other times risking their bodies and future knowingly, are the ultimate tragedy of these cold anti-doping results.
But it remains contingent on the country as it tries to build upon the legacy of Neeraj Chopra’s gold and pushes its own athletes to limits, to maintain zero-tolerance towards doping, and stay invested in the relentless fight against performance-enhancing substances. No medals are better than tainted ones in sport.
This editorial first appeared in the print edition on May 11, 2022 under the title ‘Games they play’.
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