National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), made aware of its inadequate whereabouts and testing by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), has had to pull up its socks.
Operation Carousel, conducted by WADA’s Intelligence and Investigative team into allegations that some parts of NADA’s testing programme were not in keeping with the requirements of the World Anti-Doping Code and international standards for testing and investigation and international standards for result management, revealed significant deficiencies in NADA.
WADA Intelligence and Investigations Director Gunter Younger said that since 2016, WADA has been working with NADA to improve its anti-doping programme, providing various corrective actions to address non-conformities with the World Anti-Doping Code and International Standards.
“In parallel and in response to tips coming through our confidential information platform, ‘Speak Up!’, WADA I&I launched ‘Operation Carousel’, which uncovered clear evidence that NADA’s lack of resources meant it was not carrying out a sufficient level of testing and it did not have satisfactory oversight and management of whereabouts filings by athletes in the RTP,” he said.
It is clear that WADA has an eye on India’s elite performers, studying doping practices and patterns of Indian athletes, and shared reports with Anti-Doping Task Forces ahead of multidiscipline Games so that they can tailor their testing plans and risk assessment for Indian athletes. The underlying message is that cheats would be caught sooner than later.
In November 2022, WADA’s Intelligence and Investigation team pointed out to NADA that more than 25 per cent of the 131 athletes on the NADA RTP had either not made a Whereabouts Filing at the required times or had made a delayed Whereabouts Filing. NADA also admitted to not registering a Whereabouts Failure in ADAMS against any of these athletes.
The WADA team also pointed out that as of November 17, 2022, as many as 28 of the 131 athletes on NADA’s RTP had not been tested at all through the year.
As a consequence, before the year ended, NADA tested all 131 athletes on the RTP at least once, with 103 of those being tested at least three times. This led to four positive tests, including of an athlete who had not been tested at all till November 17, 2022, and one who had not been tested out of competition.
In March 2023, NADA informed WADA that it had discovered 79 Whereabouts Failures (41 Filing Failures and 28 Missed Tests) were in the final stages of review. In a couple of months, this number increased to 97 (70 Filing Failures and 27 Missed Tests) against 70 athletes.
A summary report of Operation Carousel has revealed that, in May 2022, it had recommended target testing of 13 Indian athletes, part of the 2022 NADA RTP but were training outside the country. WADA had been monitoring them for a while and found that four had not filed the mandatory Whereabouts and one had updated Whereabouts at the last minute and falsely claimed that it was done in India.
One of these four athletes who had not filed Whereabouts tested positive for an anabolic steroid and has been sanctioned a three-year period of ineligibility.
NADA revised its RTP to 155 athletes for the current quarter beginning July 1, 2023. It had 151 athletes on the RTP in the earlier quarter. Besides, the then NADA Director-General Ms. Ritu Sain informed WADA on July 5, 2023, that NADA had
- Strengthened its testing programme by improving internal processes and adding resources.
- Started processing Whereabouts Failures and Missed Tests in a timely fashion.
- Employed a dedicated investigator and two intelligence staff.
- Improved athlete support for those on RTP to comply with Whereabouts requirements.
The Summary of Operation Carousel can be found here.
This piece first appeared in RevSportz
