NADA dossier: Offenders halved but sanctions doubled

SEVENTY THREE Indian athletes were caught doping in 2016, the lowest figure in five years as per the data compiled by the National Anti Doping Agency (NADA). The number of offenders has come down drastically from 2015, when 120 sportspersons were guilty of consuming performance-enhancing drugs, which was the highest-ever figure in a calendar year. At the same time, the number of athletes sanctioned for doping violations last year (53) compared to the previous one has nearly doubled, with the NADA hearing panel handing out punishments to 104 culprits.

Yet, it may not be enough for India to fall out of the top-three in the World Anti Doping Agency’s (WADA’S) annual report, which will be released later this year. In the last couple of years, India has been ranked third by WADA in the list of countries with maximum dope violations.

In 2013, the report for which was released in 2015, India was behind Russia and Turkey while according to the figures for 2014 – made available last year – Indian athletes trailed their Russian and Italian counterparts.

The list of dope cheats in India has been expanding ever since the relay quartet was exposed in 2011. In 2012, which was an Olympic year like 2016, 119 positive tests were recorded. The number reduced to 96 and 95 in 2013 and 2014 respectively before the spike in 2015. One of the reasons for the sharp reduction last year is NADA’S change in approach towards the testing process. Instead of randomly collecting athletes’ urine or blood samples, the agency has put more emphasis on target testing over the last 12 months, its director general Navin Agarwal said.

Prescribed under the WADA code, target testing is considered to be the most crucial aspect in out-of-competition testing. Last year, it helped the NADA in catching three leading Rio-bound athletes – shot putter Inderjit Singh, sprinter Dharamvir Singh, and wrestler Narsingh Yadav.

“There is a lot of intelligence gathering now. We are collecting ground reports, coordinating with federations and Sports Authority of India, where the athletes train, and also monitoring their past results,” Agarwal, an IPS officer, said. “We are not doing random, unplanned tests. Our target group has increased.”

But the change in approach has also resulted in a decline in the samples tested. A few federation officials - mainly from athletics and weightlifting, the two disciplines with highest cases - have expressed their disappointment with NADA’S new testing policy.

In 2016, athletics accounted for maximum positive cases (23), followed by powerlifting (15) and weightlifting (13). Kabaddi, which is fast growing in popularity, had 10 cases of failed dope tests.

During its national championships in the last week of December, Indian Weightlifting Federation vice president Sahdev Yadav said it ‘defied logic’ that NADA collected samples of only eight players out of the 300-odd participants. Till 2015, he claimed, the dope officers would collect ‘more than 60 samples.’

Athletics Federation of India secretary CK Valson, too, was surprised when no anti-doping officer was present when high-jumper Tejaswin Shankar created a national record at the junior national championships in November. The record could not be immediately ratified as an athlete has to clear a dope test for that to happen.

NADA did not provide the figures of the samples it has collected in 2016. In 2014 and 2015, they collected around 4,300 samples but it is believed that the number has come down drastically last year. “There may have been a decrease in the number of samples we collected but not everyone has to be tested,” Agarwal said. “The incidents have come down because we have invested a lot time in awareness programmes. Our primary objective is to educate the athletes. As deterrence, testing is also required, which we are doing in a planned way.”

In terms of percentage, 3.54 percent of the total samples collected by NADA returned positive, which is its highest-ever detection rate. In 2014, 2.80 percent of the samples tested were positive while in 2015, it was 2.68 percent. NADA’S detection rate is highest among anti-doping agencies who have tested more than 2,500 samples.

But its process often hit the roadblock during hearings, which resulted in a low sanction rate. Agarwal said increasing the detection rate, improving the sanction rate and creating an awareness programme were his three key targets when he took over just before the Olympics last year. “The high sanction rate shows that cases are fought effectively during the hearings,” he said. “But it will still take us two more years to fall out of the top five in the doping offences list globally. A lot of work still needs to be done to achieve that.”