The Hindu (Thiruvananthapuram)
Dope cheats have no fear when they return after suspension: Anju
Five years ago, Asian champion quartermiler Nirmala Sheoran was punished with a fouryear ban for failing a dope test and her results from August 2016 to November 2018 were disqualified. That meant that Nirmala would lose the 400m gold which she won at the 2017 Bhubaneswar Asian Championships and Jisna Mathew, who had finished third in that final, should have received a silver medal.
“I have not got the silver medal yet. But after we wrote to the Athletics Federation of India, we got a letter saying that I have been upgraded from bronze to silver,” said Jisna.
The Odisha Government had also presented ₹ 10 lakh to the gold medal winners, ₹ 7.5 lakh for silver and ₹ 5 lakh for bronze at the 2017 Asians held in that State but Jisna has not heard anything about the prizemoney.
Nirmala returned to national competition at last year’s InterState meet, and last month was handed an eightyear ban for a second doping violation which happened last year. Around the same time, news came in that hammer thrower K.M. Rachna had been banned for 12 years for a second doping offence.
As the Indian track and field season begins in this Paris Olympics year with the 400m Indian Open in Thiruvananthapuram on March 18, a big question keeps popping up... are cheats getting more confident?
“Once they commit a crime, it looks like they have no fear when they do it a second time. Once they are caught, they have to undergo multiple tests before being cleared to compete. So they probably think since they have undergone so many tests, nobody will come to test them again,” said Anju Bobby George in a chat with The Hindu.
Anju felt that athletes who finish behind the cheats should get the medals and the other prizes that they missed out on. “Athletes are supposed to lose their medals and other prizes received during the ban period. We have to initiate action in this regard.”