World Para Athletics Championships 2025 double medallist Simran Sharma’s Guide Runner, Umar Saifi, has been placed on provisional suspension by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) after he tested positive for a banned substance Drostanolone. The news, which broke late on Friday night, has palpably shaken the Indian sports community.
It is not known if it is an immediate fallout of 20-year-old Umar Saifi’s provisional suspension, but the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has decided to hold the function to felicitate the medal winners of the World Para Athletics Championships behind closed doors in the Maj. Dhyan Chand National Stadium in the Capital on Saturday.
Simran emerged the star of the Indian show in the World Para Athletics Championships by winning gold in the 100m T12 in a personal best time of 11.95 seconds and silver in 200m T12 in an Asian Record time of 24.46 seconds. She spontaneously shared the limelight with Umar Saifi, calling him her ‘Chhota bhai’ (younger brother).
Umar Saifi, who hails from Muradnagar in Uttar Pradesh, replaced Abhay Singh as Simran’s Guide Runner after the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games where the Indian ace won a bronze medal in the 200m T12 with a personal best time of 24.75 seconds. A few months earlier, she had won gold in the World Championships in Kobe in a time of 24.95 seconds.
Originally developed to treat breast cancer, Drostanolone has become popular among dopers in sport for its ability to sharpen muscle definition, enhance vascularity, and preserve lean mass. This anabolic steroid, administered through injections, has been detected in scores of Indian athletes, including 25 who have entered into Case Resolution Agreements with NADA.
NADA-NDTL delay inexplicable
NADA has not indicated when the sample was collected. But by all accounts, he was subject to a test sometime in September. If indeed Umar Saifi’s sample was collected ahead of the World Para Athletics Championships, the results ought to have been sought and got from the National Dope Testing Laboratory before the global event.
Had the test results been obtained a fortnight earlier, Simran Sharma could have used a different Guide Runner in the World Championships. There is no guarantee that with a new Guide Runner she would have clocked a personal best in the 100m T12 and an Asian Record in 200m T12 events, but she could have been saved from a traumatic experience.
If Umar Saifi cops a sanction for the anti-doping rule violation, India’s haul in the World Para Athletics Championships will come down to 20 medals and its rank will slip to 13 on the medals table.
With Simran’s medals likely to be taken back and results annulled, India could have avoided the embarrassment of a doping incident impacting an international event that it hosted with pride. Indeed, NADA – and perhaps NDTL – have a case to answer on the delay in securing the results of a test on an athlete featuring in a global meet, even as a support personnel.
It is clear is that the NADA has been caught napping again. It had taken more than 11 months after middle-distance runner Parvej Khan’s third Whereabouts failure on December 5, 2022, to have the administrative review report ready and a decision to record a missed test was made only on November 11, 2023.
