Narsingh’s positive test due to oral ingestion: CAS report
NEW DELHI: While delivering its judgement, the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s (CAS) ad-hoc division punched holes in Narsingh Pancham Yadav’s sabotage theory while awarding the four-year ban.
Narsingh and his lawyer, Vidushpat Singhania, had successfully pleaded before the threemember National Anti-Doping Agency’s anti-doping and disciplinary panel that he was a victim of sabotage, after which he was exonerated of doping offences.
The world body (WADA) lodged an appeal against the judgement.
In its reports, CAS’s ad-hoc division said the wrestler failed to establish the ‘balance of probabilities’ that the anti-doping rule violation was not intentional.
Importantly, CAS also cast doubt on the wrestler’s image by agreeing with WADA expert, Dr Christine Ayotte, director (head of laboratory) of WADA’s accredited laboratory in Montreal, Canada, who argued that contrary to the claims, Narsingh’s positive test was a result of oral ingestion.
“…the panel noted in the closing remarks that the athlete’s counsel submitted that he may have been subject to further sabotage, but all in all found the sabotage (s) theory possible, but not probable and certainly not grounded in real evidence.
INTENTIONAL
The panel therefore determined that the athlete had failed to satisfy his burden of proof and the panel was satisfied that the most likely explanation was that the athlete simply and intentionally ingested the prohibited substance in tablet form on more than one occasion,” the order read.
Dr Ayotte, as mentioned in the CAS order, suggested that this was not a one-time ingestion as “the concentration of the prohibitive substance in the first test result was so high that it had to come from an oral ingestion of one or two tablets of methandienone, rather than from a drink where the powder had been mixed with water.”
Narsingh’s lawyers had claimed that his amino drink was laced with the banned substance to explain his violation.
She further opined that Narsingh and his roommate Sandip Tulsi Yadav’s ingestion was not at the same time as they claimed.
As per her analysis, “there was at least 12 to 20 hours difference between the ingestion of the prohibitive substance by the athlete and by his roommate.”
Also, methandienone would not completely dissolve in the drink, even if it had been ground, so the athlete would have seen traces in the drink.