Five Indians in international dope testing pool
After a stellar 2022 for India at the international level, there will be increased scrutiny on top Indian track and field athletes this season with five of them included in the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) of World Athletics (WA). The list was announced by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU)--an independent body of WA that is entrusted with the job of conducting dope tests and result management.
AIU’s testing is focused on elite athletes and those part of the RTP are required to provide in advance whereabouts and a 60-minute time slot for dope tests. The filing of details is quarterly and athletes are allowed to update their entries in the web page provided for it if there are changes later.
Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Neeraj Chopra was already in the international testing pool. India’s four new inclusions are Annu Rani (javelin), Murali Sreeshankar (long jump), Avinash Sable (steeplechase) and Abdulla Aboobacker (triple jump).
Sable (national record: 8 min, 11.20 secs) and Sreeshankar (NR 8.36m) had a stellar season breaking national marks and winning silver at the Birmingham CWG. Rani, the national record holder (63.82m), won bronze. Aboobacker won silver behind Eldhose Paul in India’s 1-2 finish in triple jump.
AIU updated its testing pool on Saturday for the current quarter. The previous list had two names—Chopra and woman discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur. Her name was removed from RTP after failing AIU’s out-of-competition test. She is currently serving a three-year ban. Among the series of doping cases involving Indian athletes last year, Kaur’s was the most high-profile. She had finished an impressive sixth at the Tokyo Olympics. Her sample had tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid Stanozolol.
Top sprinter Dhanalakshmi Sekar also returned positive following an AIU test and was banned for three years. She was dropped for the Eugene world championships and CWG after failing the test done by AIU in Antalya, Turkey on May 1 during an Indian team training camp.
According to AIU, the RTP focuses on out-of-competition testing. Failure to be available during the self-designated time slots is considered a missed test. Three missed tests amount to an anti-doping violation.
75 in NADA testing pool
There will be increased surveillance by the National Anti-Doping Agency too. NADA published its registered testing pool on Monday. Of the 149 names, 75 are from track and field.
NADA too has caught some big names through its testing. They include Tokyo Olympic javelin thrower Shivpal Singh, sprinter MR Poovamma and long jumper Aishwarya Babu.
Five cricketers too are in the NADA testing pool—Hardik Pandya, Surya Kumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur.
Those in the NADA testing pool are also required to “inform NADA about their whereabouts on a quarterly basis, in the manner specified by the international standard for testing.”
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