Setback for women's relay team due to doping, injury pull out
New Delhi: India's 4x400 women's relay team has been rocked by a doping scandal and injury withdrawal on the eve of the Asian Athletics Championships starting in Gumi, South Korea, from Tuesday.
Sneha Kolleri, who was part of women's 4x400m women's and mixed relay squads, has returned positive for stanozolol in a test conducted by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU). On Monday, AIU confirmed her positive test and informed that the athlete was provisionally suspended on May 23.
It has been learnt that she was tested by AIU during the World Relays Championships in Guangzhou, China two weeks back. Sneha competed in mixed relay (4x400m) in which India failed to qualify for the world championships.
Before she could board the flight to Gumi, Athletics Federation of India (AFI) withdrew Sneha from the team.
It has been learnt that another member of the relay squad Sandramol Sabu has also pulled out due to injury. She has not travelled with the team to South Korea. That leaves only four members -- Rupal Chaudhary, Subha Venkatesan, Jisna Mathew, and Kunja Rajitha -- for the women's relay (4x400m) and mixed relay competitions.
Sneha was part of the national camp (for relay teams) at the National Centre of Excellence in Trivandrum. Her personal best of 53 seconds in 400m came this year at the National Federation Championships in Kochi last month, where she won bronze medal. She was part of both the women's and mixed relays squads at the Asian Championships.
Aishwarya Mishra, who has the season's best of 51.12s, was not selected in the team as she did not compete in the Federation Cup. Rupal has the next best timing of 52.41s, followed by Vithya Ramraj (52.81s). Sneha has the fourth best timing this season while Subha Venkatesan (53.35s) is sixth in the list. The Indian relay teams are yet to qualify for the world championships.
This is the third high profile case of doping this season. Earlier Hangzhou Asian Games 10,000m silver medallist Kartik Kumar and javelin thrower Shivpal Singh failed dope tests. Also, AFI junior team coach N Ramesh was suspended by NADA on charges of 'complicity.'
AIU on revealed on Monday that another Indian athlete -- Varsha Tekam, who participated in the National Cross Country Championships in January, has been suspended for evading/refusing to submit sample.
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