India tops doping charts, sports ministry promises to fight the menace
New Delhi: The menace of doping has hit Indian sport hard in recent times. The latest testing figures from the World Anti-Doping Agency for the year 2023 reveal a rather gloomy situation with India emerging at the top of the worldwide chart in the number of positive cases. Doping, conceptual illustration. (Getty Images/Science Photo Libra)
The National Anti-Doping Agency recorded 213 Adverse Analytical Findings (AAF) or positive cases from 5606 samples collected. The percentage of positive cases therefore stood at 3.8 — the highest among nations that tested more than 1000 samples for the year. From 5184 urine samples, 211 AAF were reported while 422 blood samples produced two positive cases.
For the record, the number of samples collected by NADA in 2023 is the highest ever. In 2022, NADA conducted 3865 tests with the AAF rate of 3.2%. In 2021, 1794 samples were tested and the corresponding AAF was 2.3%. In 2019, India had tested 4,004 samples and the number of positive cases were 224 — 5.6% rate.
The sports ministry said it has significantly increased testing and is determined to fight the menace. 'We are determined to fight doping. It is not acceptable. That's why we have increased the sample size every year. If you see the result, there is a decline in the rate over the last few years from over 5 per cent to three per cent. We have been transparent in our policy,' said a top sports ministry official.
'We have made testing compulsory for athletes' national camps across various age groups. They are being tested frequently. We are also focussing on awareness drives,' the official added.
To counter doping, India brought the National-Anti Doping Law in 2022 that focussed on building institutional capabilities in anti-doping, providing legal sanctity to NADA and NDTL, restructuring NADA's governance mechanism, enhancing cop-operation among agencies, and independent mechanism for anti-doping adjudication. However, the law could not be implemented because WADA had raised objections to certain provisions of the law.
The sports ministry is now working towards incorporating the suggested changes and bringing in an amendment.
In the WADA testing report, China tested a total of 28,197 samples and returned 0.2% AAF. Germany, France, Russia all had more than 10,00 samples collected, with the rate of AAF within 1%. USA had collected 6798 with 1.0% AAF rate.
In India track and field returned the most number of positive cases — 61 positive results from 1223 samples. The number of in-competition AAF was 47 while 14 tested positive out of competition. Weightlifters were next in line with 38 positive cases. From 451 samples, weightlifting recorded a whopping percentage of 8.4 positive cases.
While AAF are just positive cases, an anti-doping rule violation or doping offence is determined after completion of the hearing process.
Mission Olympic Cell
The sports ministry will provide an out-of-pocket allowance of ₹ 25,000 per month for hockey national campers. Eighty players (40 men and 40 women) will get the financial grant under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme, it was decided at the Mission Olympic Cell's meeting on Thursday. 'Hockey India requested the government to provide the campers with an allowance and we have decided to accept it,' sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya said.
Several athletes who performed well at the Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi have been added in the TOPS group while five tennis players and two gymnasts including Pranati Nayak have been brought in Target Asian Games Group.
The ministry is also looking to extend its talent identification drive by encouraging talented youngsters to upload their video of performance in an official app which can be assessed by expert SAI panels.
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