‘ We instilled fear of doping in our lifters’

Gold Coast, April 10: Over 500 dope tests every year in the last four years, specialised diet and nutritional supplements only from Germany were among ingredients that went into the Indian weightlifters’ sensational haul of five gold medals at the CWG.

The Indian weightlifting team heads home on Wednesday with five gold, two silver and as many bronze, topping the medals tally in the sport.

This, despite the fact that the team did not have access to a fulltime physio for the entire duration of the Games and almost every member of the squad carried niggles of various degrees.

Neither did they have a single coach to attend to them during training sessions as the three travelling coaches were held up at the competition venue everyday. “It has been a performance which has been in the making for the last four years. We made certain structural changes to the way weightlifters trained. Most importantly, we changed the dietary habits and the nutritional supplements,” India’s national coach Vijay Sharma said.

Mirabai Chanu ( 48kg), Sanjita Chanu ( 53kg), Sathish Sivalingam ( 77kg), Venkat Rahul Ragala ( 85kg) and Punam Yadav ( 69kg) claimed gold, while P. Gururaja ( 56kg) and Pardeep Singh ( 105kg) fetched silvers.

Vikas Thakur ( 94kg) and and 18- year- old Deepak Lather ( 69kg) added the bronze medals to the kitty.

Indian weightlifting does not have the best track record in doping and Sharma said it was a problem tackled head on by the national federation in the last four years.

“We made a conscious effort to weed out dope cheats. We took National A n t i - D o p i n g Agency’s help and have been conducting over 500 dope tests Every year since 2014, you can check the records. We instilled fear about doping into athletes,” he said.

“When I took over as coach, I was specifically told to ensure that doping completely ends. With the support of the federation, our kids are now much more aware and probably more fearful of doing anything wrong for performance,” he explained. “And why do they cheat? They cheat when their supplements are not good, their diet is lacking which hinders recovery. Now that all these aspects are being taken care of, there is no reason for anyone to indulge in wrongdoing,” he added.