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All India University: ‘Missing’ Anju loses 800 metre title, second-place finisher declared winner

Anju did not turn up for the medal ceremony; Officers of the National Anti Doping Agency were present at the All-India Inter University Athletics Championships

2 min readJan 17, 2026 08:57 PM IST

Anju's (No. 3913) name has been scratched out and Anjali (3772) has now been declared the winner. (Photo: Stan Rayan)

Anju, the winner of the women’s 800 metres at the 85th All-India Inter-University Athletics Championships at Moodbidri in Mangaluru lost her title after her name was ‘scratched out’ because she did not turn up for the medal ceremony. The second-place finisher Anjali has been declared as the winner. Anju is from Lovely Professional University while Anjali represents Guru Nanak Dev University. The race had taken place on Tuesday.

HB Radhakrishna, the manager of the all-India varsity meet said the decision was taken following a complaint to the jury. “After the race, a complaint went to the jury of appeal. The jury decided to give a letter to the team manager (of the LP University) that he should produce the particular athlete for the victory ceremony,” Radhakrishna said.

“The jury gave the manager 24 hours time for that. After 24 hours, the manager returned and he gave in writing that ‘she is not here, she is not under my control also’. On the basis of that, the jury decided to upgrade the result and scratched out the winner.”

Doping Control Officers of the National Anti-Doping Agency were present at the championships.

Radhakrishna also explained the logic of not disqualifying the athlete but ‘scratching her name out.’

“Yes, disqualification. But suppose you write it as a disqualification, for Khelo India (University Games), that name will come again. In Khelo India, they call the best eight athletes so naturally she will come into the list. And once again, there will be a problem in Khelo India,” Radhakrishna said. “So, for that purpose, they wrote like that (as scratched).”

The manager also said that a similar incident had occurred during the half marathon.

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“The same happened in the women’s half marathon too. That result also has been upgraded, with the third-place finisher (Ganga of Ch. Chaudhary Charan University) being scratched out and the fourth-place finisher (Khushboo Patel) moving to third,” said the meet manager.