In a landmark order, a National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) has handed down powerlifted Sandeep Kaur a 10-year ban for an Anti-Doping Rule Violation, including eight years for a second violation and two for aggravating circumstances.
Barring the life bans on weightlifter Sailja Pujari and hammer thrower Jitender Singh in 2010, the 10-year sanction on Sandeep Kaur is the longest ban imposed on an athlete by an ADDP since 2009.
The 31-year-old Punjab powerlifter’s second offence, which attracted an ineligibility period twice as long as her first ADRV for Stanozolol in 2019, was compounded by the multiple banned substances detected in her sample this time around.
Less than five months since returning to competition after completing a four-year ban in March 2023, she finished third in the 69kg class in the National Senior Women’s Equipped Powerlifting Championships in Kashipur. However, she tested positive for Norandrosterone, Metandienone and Mephentermine.
Athlete gets banned again for competing during period of ineligibility
In another first for the National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panels, Avnish Giri was handed an additional four-year ban for competing in the National Wushu Championships 2023 when still serving a four-year ban imposed on him after he tested positive for Metandienone in 2019. It is an indication that the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has enhanced its war against doping.
The NADA list of ineligible athletes reveals that it has imposed provisional suspensions on more than 45 athletes since April 5 when it last shared such a list on its website. These include 15 track and field athletes, 11 wrestlers and five boxers. There are two new minors, both weightlifters, on this list and a motor sports athlete as well.
As many as 108 athletes across disciplines, including motor sport, are listed as serving provisional suspensions. Besides, in the month of May, 20 athletes accepted sanctions ranging from two years or three years under the Case Resolution Agreement with NADA. This list now has 141 athletes who have accepted their guilt and agreed to undergo sanctions by forgoing their right to a hearing.
Kerala loses National Games relay silver after 20-year-old fails dope test
Meanwhile, Kerala has been stripped of the National Games women’s 4x100m relay silver medal in Goa after one of its runners, Neha V, was handed a four-year ban for committing a National Ant-Doping Rule Violation after testing positive for banned substance Stanozolol. Kerala had finished second in 46.02 seconds behind Andhra Pradesh (45.61) and ahead of Karnataka (46.22).
Neha also won U20 silver medals in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay in the National Junior Athletics Championships in Coimbatore in November 2023. Clearly, these medals will have to be returned to the Athletics Federation of India so that they can be handed over to those who were bumped up in the placings as a result of Neha’s ADRV.
Tested after the race on October 31, 2023, Neha was placed on provisional suspension on December 6. On May 26, she was handed a four-year ineligibility period by a National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel. The 20-year-old sprinter from Palakkad thus became the latest in a long line of Indian athletes to be banned for use of Stanozolol.
Made infamous by Ben Johnson in the 1998 Seoul Olympics, Stanozolol has been found in the samples of many of the 908 Indians athletes currently serving sanctions. Though it was withdrawn from the United States of America market in 2010, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation allows the manufacture and sale of Stanozolol both for oral and intramuscular use.
