The varying sanctions for terbutaline

Representative photo

Cross-country runner Dinesh Kumar tested positive for terbutaline in the Services cross-country championships in September 2017. In May 2018 he was handed down a two-year suspension, the maximum that could be given for a ‘specified substance’ if the anti-doping authority fails to prove that the offence was intentional to enhance performance.

This is the maximum punishment ordered for a positive test for the bronchodilator drug  in India since November, 2015. Four decisions preceding Dinesh Kumar’s had ordered mere ‘reprimand’. One decision after Dinesh’s has ended in a one-year suspension for boxer Diksha Rajput from 9 July, 2018.

So, why should there be such great variance in sanctioning for terbutaline offences? Is it possible to ingest it inadvertently, at least in the Indian context, since athletes may not be familiar with the names of the banned substances that come in cough syrups? Is it sufficient to show a medical prescription containing a medicine that has terbutaline as one of its ingredients to at least get a reduced sanction?  This is an attempt to analyze the various issues related to asthma drugs that are also commonly found in many of the cough syrups.

Terbutaline is a Beta-2 Agonist that forms a group of medications that help in relaxing the muscles of the respiratory airways. Beta-2 Agonists are banned in sports by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) except for inhaled form of salbutamol, formoterol and salmeterol, all asthma drugs, up to specified thresholds.

Asthma patients among sportspersons apply for therapeutic use exemption (TUE) for use of these drugs or corticosteroids for the management of their condition. As had been reported in the distant past as well as recently, asthma medications tend to be misused by athletes to enhance performance. Thus, through the years, obtaining a TUE for asthma drugs has become tougher and tougher for the athletes. It is also a fact that larger percentage of sportspersons seem to suffer from asthma compared to the general populace.

Athletes vulnerable

Because of the presence of some of these drugs in common cold and cough medications, athletes have been particularly vulnerable to positive dope tests for Beta-2 Agonists as well as stimulants like ephedrine, methylephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the latter class of drugs mentioned in the prohibited list with specified permitted thresholds.

Terbutaline is available in tablet, syrup and inhaler forms. Athletes invariably claim that they were advised cough syrups that contained terbutaline which they were unaware of and thus turned in a positive dope test.

Generally, hearing panels have tended to view the terbutaline offenders or the users of any of the bronchodilators sympathetically even when they do not present TUEs and only produce prescriptions.

In India, a few of the more famous cases of terbutaline ingestion included that of cricketer Yusuf Pathan and footballer Subrata Paul.

 Pathan was slapped with a five-month ban by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) earlier this year for a terbutaline offence in the Vijay Hazare Trophy in March, 2017. In July, 2017, Paul was reprimanded, the lowest sanction possible for a ‘specified substance’ which terbutaline is.

Yusuf Pathan gets five months

Pathan promptly admitted his guilt and the BCCI agreed that the sanction would be five months and backdated it to mean he would undergo just six days of the suspension. Interestingly, Pathan was also deemed to have been under suspension when he had actually played! BCCI having its own rules, based on ICC anti-doping code, and its own hearing process, NADA was unable to intervene in this case. Nor has NADA any authority to test cricketers in India, a tussle that seemed to be headed for a showdown between the ICC and WADA if recent reports are to be believed.

Subrata Paul stated before a panel in a case brought forward by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) that the Indian team doctor had prescribed him Ascoril which happened to contain terbutaline. The doctor admitted his guilt. The panel was highly critical of the doctor and the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

In this background has come Dinesh Kumar’s case.  At the outset, it has to be clarified that a mere medical prescription does not allow an athlete to take a prohibited drug. For that you need a TUE. But a prescription does help often as had been found in several cases.

Dinesh Kumar’s sample given on 28 September 2017 turned in a positive result for terbutaline. He appeared before the anti-doping disciplinary panel (ADDP) headed by Mr. Kuldeep Singh. The panel also contained Dr Sanjeev Kumar and hockey Olympian Jagbir Singh.

Dinesh, who hails from Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, told the panel that in August 2017 he was on leave and was suffering from fever and cough. He was advised medicines by a doctor at “Saheed Chandrabhan Duddi Memorial Hospital”, Laharu, Haryana. He was prescribed “Tab Augmentin Duo 625m Zinetac 150mg, Montair LC, Syp Brozeedex and tablet Caproc 625mg on 28/08/2017”. (All medicines as spelt out in the order)

The athlete further stated that before the competition he was suffering from cough and consumed ‘Brozeedex’ which was left in the bottle. He said he was not aware that the cough syrup contained a prohibited substance.

NADA’s pet argument

On its part, NADA simply stated what it had been stating ad nauseum: “It is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substance enter his or her body. Athletes are responsible for any prohibited substance or its metabolites or markers found to be present in their samples. Accordingly, it is not necessary that intent, fault or negligence or knowing use on the athlete’s part be demonstrated in order to establish an anti-doping rule violation under Article 2.1.”

NADA contended that the athlete did not have a TUE to use the prohibited substance. It also said that the athlete did not disclose the medicine at the time of the sample collection in the doping control form.

Bro-Zedex (not Brozeedex as mentioned in the order) contains terbutaline. The order does not mention whether the athlete produced a prescription. It mentions a hospital where the athlete reportedly went. The athlete has stated a few medicines including Bro-Zedex (presumably) but the order does not say that these medicines are contained in a prescription or a hospital OPD document.

Let us assume then that there was a prescription. And it contained Bro-Zedex as one of the medicines prescribed by a doctor. It doesn’t suffice of course as a substitute for a TUE. But have panels been lenient in the past since there was a prescription?

“Yes” is the unambiguous answer

Of the 14 cases of terbutaline listed on the NADA website, eight are pre-2016. Of them, there were three for six-month suspensions, two for three months, one for one year, one exoneration and one for two years. Boxer Vikas Singh suffered the two-year suspension from March 2015.

After four cases of ‘reprimand’ in 2016 came Dinesh Kumar. He is out for two years form his voluntary provisional suspension date of 7 November 2017,with the panel not even making a mention about his illness or the medicines or the absence of a TUE in its order except as part of athlete’s submission.

The Kuldeep Singh-headed panel observed that NADA had failed to establish “intentional” doping (by which the athlete could have been suspended for four years) and thus it had to be two years suspension.

The cough syrup in question

Two of the four ‘reprimanded’ athletes (shot putter Suji Rani and wrestler Khushboo Pawar) had used Bro-Zedex. They produced prescriptions, but they did not have TUEs. In both cases the panels ruled that the athletes could not have derived any advantage by using the cough syrup containing terbutaline.

Boxer Amandeep Kaur used syrup Muconext which contained terbutaline. In her case also the panel ruled that she could not have derived any performance-enhancement by using the drug.

As mentioned above, National football team goalkeeper Subrata Paul was also given a ‘reprimand’ when it was proved that the team doctor had prescribed a medicine that contained terbutaline.

Does this happen at the international level also?

Yes. British cyclist Simon Yates was given a four-month suspension for a terbutaline offence in 2016 when his team failed to apply for a TUE for his “long-term asthma” problems. Yates apologized.

There are no fixed criteria, it would seem, for accepting or rejecting a prescription or a medical condition as mitigating circumstances for the positive test for such drugs.

Precedents in India showed prescriptions were fine. Some even suggested there was no advantage by taking this drug from a performance angle. In a 2013 study, terbutaline has been found to aid sprinters due its capacity to boost anaerobic performance, but it “decreased endurance due to side-effects.”

No one seemed to have guided Dinesh Kumar, an endurance runner, about these aspects. Nor did the panel apparently go into such issues. It seemed keen to avoid treating the case as “intentional doping” and slapping a four-year ban.

The order was issued on 7 May and informed through a NADA letter dated 17 May, 2018. The appeal deadline of 21 days from the receipt of the intimation has long been over. May be, Dinesh would have fared better had he received some legal help.

Before we start complaining that two years for a terbutaline offence looks too harsh, just sample this one! Four years for ephedrine! And the guy took it without a hearing!

Where do we stand? (Part II)

                                         Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, India's best bet for
                                        Tokyo Olympics. _Photo by G. Rajaraman.

Can Asian Games standards be compared to Olympics and World championships? The just-concluded games produced no world-leading result in athletics for the year. It did have an unofficial world best in an event that has just about started making its presence felt through the world, the mixed relay. Bahrain clocked 3:11.89 for the gold.

We love comparing efforts in Asian Games by saying “This would have fetched him gold or a medal at least in the last Olympics”. One example doing the rounds of an athletics timing in Asian Games being compared to an Olympic gold medal in Rio is Jinson Johnson’s effort of 3:44.72 for gold in the 1500m in Jakarta. It happens to be better than what American Matthew Centrowitz clocked (3:50.00) for the gold in the Rio Olympics. This has been highlighted in sections of the media to drive home the point that the Kerala man could be in contention for a medal in 2020, not in so many words, though.

The unpredictability of middle distance

He might well be, but not because his latest timing is better than the Rio gold medallist’s but because the middle distance events are always unpredictable, especially when the first 1000-plus metres happens to be slow in a 1500m or the first lap or 600m happens to be near jogging pace in an 800m. Centrowitz’s timing was the slowest for the 1500m gold in an Olympics since 1932.

Fermin Cacho clocked 3:40.12 to win the Olympic 1500m gold in Barcelona in 1992 in front of his home fans as he took off from 250 metres out to destroy the field that included the peerless Algerian Noureddine Morceli. It was the slowest Olympic final since 1956. The Spaniard could turn around six times to make sure that no one was close to him and still win comfortably. He would take the silver behind Morceli in the next edition in Atlanta where the great Morocccan, Hicham El Gurerouj took a tumble going into the final lap and never recovered. El Guerrouj was beaten by Kenyan Noah Ngeny in Sydney despite being the overwhelming favourite. The Moroccan would have the final word, though, in Athens, and he took the 5000m gold as well to go as icing on the cake that the 1500m gold was. El Guerrouj still holds the world record in the 1500m at 3:26.00, timed in Rome on 14 July, 1998.

Centrowitz had the credentials in 2016 when he took the start in the 1500m final, but he was not the favourite. He was a former World championship silver and bronze medallist and a fourth-place finisher in the London Olympics in 2012.

When you compare a winning time with one clocked a few years back in an Olympics or World championships to suggest that your athlete has reached the standard that can win global medal you also have to see how many others had clocked the same (Rio gold medal) time the same season. More than 1000 athletes did in 2016! And that included Johnson also at 3:44.9 (hand-timing) and Centrowitz with 3:34.09 at 21st place. Johnson qualified only for the 800m with a stunning 1:45.98 in Bengaluru but could not go beyond the opening round in Rio, clocking 1:47.27.

Johnson realistic

Sensibly, Johnson has explained to the media on his return from Jakarta that middle distance races in championships invariably produce timings that need not match season bests and forecasts since the athletes are running for medals and tactics would determine the pace.

The semifinals in Rio were much faster, the second ‘fastest loser’ to go through to the final clocking 3:40.20. Johnson knows it and has acknowledged it.

Johnson was surprisingly beaten by team-mate Manjit Singh in the 800m in Jakarta and looked determined to compensate for the disappointment of ending with the silver. Manjit clocked a PB 1:46.65 for his first international title. That happened to be the first Asian Games gold in 800m since Charles Borromeo won in New Delhi in 1982. Manjit's success after 36 years and that of Arpinder in triple jump after 42 years only go to show how much Indian athletics had stagnated through decades.

There has been much praise for Russia-born US coach Galina Bukharina who has been credited with six medals, the women’s 4x400 gold and the silver in men and women’s 400m, men’s and mixed 4x400 relay and the men’s 400m hurdles (Ayyasamy Dharun in national record of 48.96s).

But why is it that not many are talking about the others, mostly Indian coaches, who helped Johnson, Manjit, Tejinder Pal Singh Toor (shot put) and Swapna Barman (heptathlon) win gold medals and three others (sprinter Dutee Chand, steeplechaser Sudha Singh and long jumper Neena Pinto) take silver? Even triple jumper Arpinder Singh, who took a surprise gold against higher-ranked Chinese, was under Indian coach S. S. Pannu when he registered his personal best and national record of 17.17m in Lucknow in 2014.

The women’s 4x400 team of Priyanka Panwar, Tintu Luka, Mandeep Kaur and M. R. Poovamma had clocked a Games record 3:28.68 in winning the gold in the last edition in Incheon. That team was trained by Indian coaches. It did not have a training base abroad. That record still stands despite the excellent effort of the team moulded by Ms. Bukahrina. Hima Das, Poovamma, Saritaben Gayakwad and V. K. Vismaya clocked 3:28.72 to beat the challenge of Bahrain which was without its second best runner, Kemi Adekoya, due to an injury. Adekoya, just to recall, had clocked a Games record 54.48s in defending her 400m hurdles title. She had won the 400m also last time.

Was it the strategy?

Hima Das (PB 50.79) leading off against Bahrain’s third best runner Aminat Jamal (PB 53.02) has been hailed as a master-stroke by Ms. Bukharina. In the event, Das ran 52.1 and Jamal 53.7. Bahrain slipped further behind when the reserve runner Essa Iman Isa Jassim, coming in for Adekoya, put in a lap of 54.0 as against Poovamma’s 52.0. The gap had widened beyond repair for Bahrain by the end of the second leg. The sprint double winner, Edidiong Odiong ran spiritedly though she is not a regular one-lap runner. Her 52.96 against Sarita Gayakwad’s 52.29 allowed India with a comfortable lead by the time V. K. Vismaya took over on the anchor. The result was a foregone conclusion, a victory for India in 3:28.72 as against Bahrain’s 3:30.61.

But how much did debutant Vismaya clock?. She was unruffled and held onto the lead against the top Asian, the 2017 World Championships silver medallist in the 400m, and No. 2 in the world this season, Salwa Eid Naser. The Kerala girl timed 52.23s against the Nigeria-born Bahrain runner’s 49.93s, a gap of 2.30s. Obviously, Naser did not exert herself looking at the hopelessness of the task though she has a PB of 49.08 against Vismaya’s 53.30. Let’s not get confused with the suggestion that Vismaya ‘beat’ Naser or about the 'brilliant strategy' of Ms. Bukharina in putting an injured Hima Das on leg one and Vismaya on anchor having paid rich rewards. Any combination would have sufficed against a team that had a runner who could clock only a 54.0 relay split despite a running start.

Once the AFI decided to drop the ‘non-campers’ from the 4x400m relay team, the path was cleared for the inclusion of Vismaya and Jisna Mathew both of whom had failed to progress to the final of the Inter-State meet in Guwahati, the final selection trials. It needed a time trial in Jakarta to decide the fourth place and there Vismaya (52.47) prevailed over Jisna Mathew (52.80). Soniya Baishya (53.43) and Vijayakumaru (53.90) followed.

Why was Sarita Gayakwad considered as a certainty and kept away from the time trials along with Poovamma?

The medal-winning athletes and their coaches, without exception, deserve attention and accolades, cash awards and promotions. But let us not go overboard in presuming that we have reached world standards. Let us not start penning improbable stories like we did before the Rio Olympics about the relay teams. Let us wait and see how much our athletes can improve in the next two years, with the exception of Neeraj Chopra that is, to determine where we stand vis a vis Tokyo Olympics. Chopra is already among the world’s best with his latest performance. He has to achieve consistency in the big meets among the top throwers, especially the 90-metre-plus Germans who look formidable.

The AFI needs to be complimented for the rich haul of medals in Jakarta. It has obviously planned meticulously and brought off the desired results with the aid of the coaches, Indian and foreign. Not all athletes might have justified their inclusion and eyebrows would be raised over the performance of some of them at home and in the Games. The training stints abroad, at considerable expense to the exchequer, were not totally productive. We will leave the debate for another day!

-(Concluded)

(Updated 6 Sept 2018)

Where do we stand? (Part I)

Jinson Johnson on way to 1500m gold in Asian Games_Photo by G. Rajaraman.

The best-ever medal haul by India in an Asian Games has understandably sent the country into jubilation mode. Tweeple have run out of superlatives in describing Indian success. Internet sites have kept track of every medal that the country earned through the fortnight, discussed medal chances on a daily basis and analyzed India’s long-term priorities and goals.

Not unexpectedly, there is discussion in the media and on the internet and forums about India’s chances at the Tokyo Olympics two years from now in the backdrop of this “outstanding” success.

“It gives us an idea about where we stand,” said Somdevdev Varman on television as the tennis star, a double gold medallist in the 2010 Games, and a former Davis Cupper, discussed the peformances with Olympian hockey player Viren Rasquinha about what lay ahead.

So, where do we stand?

With a bunch of teenagers ready to storm the world scene, especially in shooting_notwithstanding the disappointment for 16-year-old pistol shooter Manu Bhaker in these Games_with a javelin thrower (Neeraj Chopra) already in the 88-metre bracket, and with a World junior champion in the women’s 400m (Hima Das) breaking barriers as though nothing was beyond her, not to speak of the established stars, the picture looks rosy.

Yet, it would be logical to tread cautiously as the authorities assess India’s chances. It is easy to raise expectations and then lament once reality strikes you at the Olympics. It is encouraging, however, to note that all the authorities, barring perhaps a few federations have worked determinedly in this exercise of pushing forward for Olympic success during the past couple of years to achieve the primary target in the Asian Games, that of winning the country’s best-ever medal collection.

Can this success convert itself into Olympic medals? It may, it may not. So many factors go into the winning of an Olympic medal.

Static slot in medals table

India has not improved its position (8th) in the medals tally from the last time in Incheon. The medals have increased, gold from 11 to 15 and silver from 10 to 24. The total of 69 medals bettered the 65 won by India in 2010. The highest gold collection of 15 in the inaugural games in 1951 at home was also equalled.

India earned its record medals from 18 of the 36 sports it had entered. The other 18 included a 49-member squad in canoeing and kayaking that drew blank.

It may be pointed out that 1951 had only 11 nations including the host competing and this cannot be compared to today’s Asian Games of 46 OCA members and “African imports” in countries like Bahrain and Qatar or the presence of Central Asian Republics like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. While this is true, it is also pertinent to observe that the inaugural games had just six sports discipline compared to 40 in the present edition and only 169 medals were given away compared to 1552 in Jakarta and Palembang.

It is   disturbing to view India’s unchanged position in the medals table amidst the euphoria created by the unprecedented medal haul. India was 11th in Beijing 1990 with just one gold, eighth in Hiroshima 1994, ninth in Bangkok 1998, eighth in Busan 2002, eighth in Doha 2006, sixth in Guangzhou 2010 and eighth in Incheon 2014.

The top three having been China, Japan and South Korea (not necessarily in that order for second and third), since 1978 (China entered the fray in 1974 in Teheran and was third then behind Japan and Iran), India has languished behind countries like Iran, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and North Korea in various editions. Kazakhstan fared poorly in boxing this time. The sport having given that country six gold last time, could not manage to provide even one gold on this occasion.

A host country having an advantage is understandable. Like Iran in 1974, Thailand in 1978 and 1998 or Indonesia now (14 of its 31 gold medals came from the popular local martial arts sport, pencak silat, and a few others from other new additions to the programme). But it is time India firmly established itself as the No. 4.

Interestingly, if one takes only Olympic sport for the 2020 Games, India comes No. 4 with 14 gold and 21 silver in this edition of the Games compared to 14 gold and 15 silver for Iran and 14 gold and 20 silver for Uzbekistan. Chinese Taipei, now seventh with 17 gold will only have 11 gold.

It is pertinent to note here that Uzbekistan claimed four gold medals in the Rio Olympics, three in boxing and one in weightlifting after having won no gold in these two disciplines in the 2014 Asian Games! A history of a strong background in a sport helps but Asian Games success need not necessarily convert into Olympic medals nor can reversals in Asiad be considered as definite precursors for Olympic failures.

In assessing any team in relation to its Olympic prospects based on what was achieved in the Asian Games, it is also necessary to understand the strengths of a team. Iran won its Rio Olympic gold in weightlifting (2) and wrestling (1), sports in which it has been traditionally strong at the Asian and global levels.

In this context, it is important to analyze India’s medals in Jakarta towards Olympic success. And the top-most medal-earner happens to be athletics, 19 medals in all. Can Indian athletes bag medals in the Tokyo Olympics in 2020? Say three to four medals?

Yes, it is possible says Arpinder Singh, the gold medal winner in triple jump, the country’s first gold in the event since Mohinder Singh Gill, now based in the US, took it in 1970.

Such optimism coming from a leading athlete in the country should be encouraging as administrators draw up plans towards ‘Target Tokyo’ and the Government prepares to chart the course for Olympic medals two years from now.

But, we have to be realistic, too, in assessing our strengths in athletics. At this point, only javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who threw to a national record of 88.06m that placed him at sixth in the world lists for the season, looks to be true world-class and a medal contender in 2020.

Contrary to what is being constantly projected, it is not necessary for Chopra to enter the 90-metre club that the Germans dominate at this stage, for him to be in contention for a medal in Tokyo. Personal bests need not always be matched in big championships. It would be beneficial to get into the 90-metre bracket for the confidence it can generate in the young superstar before Tokyo but he can still be a contender if is consistent in the range of 87-88m.

Who else apart from Chopra?

Apart from Chopra, not many appear to be in contention at this point when it comes to Tokyo calculations. Things can change of course. As Arpinder has pointed out, Hima Das (400m), Dutee Chand (short sprints) and Jinson Johnson (middle distance) could also be among the contenders. He does not rule himself out. It must be mentioned sprint medals are invariably beyond the reach of Indians. 

Now that the IAAF has drawn up a new qualification system, based on world rankings in the main, qualification itself would be tough, especially in the sprints. Rankings will take into consideration the quality of the meet and it will no longer be dependent on some meet in some location in the world where a few countries get together and "achieve" qualification marks in many events. The IAAF is yet to announce the detailed qualification system with qualifying marks but has stated that such marks would be utilised only in "exceptional" cases and the broad selection would be based on world rankings to be re-introduced from next year. The upper limits in each event have already been determined, for example 56 each in sprints in either section, 40 each in both hurdles in each section, 45 each in steeplechase and so on.

Though Tokyo is still far away, it is a good time to look at where our athletes stand, as Somdevdev Varman opined in that TV discussion.

The chart below should provide a fair assessment about India’s current strengths and where our athletes are placed in relation to world’s leading performers:

SB: Season Best, PB: Personal Best; NR: National record; DQ: Disqualified. Lists up to Sept 2, 2018;
Rio '16-6th pl: 2016 Olympics-6th place                                                                                                 

 It is all well to target medals, but it is essential to look around to see what the prospects are, even at this early stage, so that preparations can be aimed towards bridging that gap.

If nine of the events in Jakarta had seen no ‘African imports’ (mainly from Nigeria, Kenya and Morocco) representing Qatar or Bahrain, India would have converted its silver (and one bronze) into gold, thereby enlarging its gold collection in athletics to 16. But then, transfer of allegiance is all too common nowadays and Asia will have to accept it.  If nothing else, these African athletes, good in a variety of track events, do help improve Asian standards.

Most of us remember Saif Saeed Shaheen (formerly Stephen Cherono) who shifted his loyalty from Kenya to Qatar in 2003. He still holds the world record in the 3000m steeplechase, at 7:53.63, set in Brussels on September 3, 2004.

Athletes seek transfer from other countries and regions, too, from Ethiopia, Kenya, Cuba and Mexico to the US, from Nigeria, Mozambique, Tunisia and Morocco to Italy, from Ghana and Ethiopia to the Netherlands and so on. Such transfers take place in other sports also though much lesser in numbers.

 (Contd in Part II)

Asian Games athletics preview (part II)

The others:

Jinson Johnson is in the form of his life. Having set national records in the 800m (1:45.65) and 1500m (3:37.86), it is easy to put him as the favourite in both these events. But then, middle distance races often do not go according to personal bests and season bests. These are tactical races in which the better tacticians, and often the best ‘kickers’, succeed.

Two Qataris, Jamal Al-Hayrani (SB 1:45.67) who finished second in the Asian championships last year, ahead of Johnson, and Abubaker Abdalla (1:46.02) will be among the contenders for the 800m gold. Also in the fray could be the Asian champion, Kuwait’s Ebrahim Al-Zofairi (SB 1:47.79), though there is no certainty about the Kuwait entries at the time of writing.

Muhammed Anas has to contend with Haroun who has run seven sub-45 this season alone in the one-lapper. The Qatari’s level of consistency is unmatched in Asia. A World championship bronze medallist in 2017 and Asian champion in 2015, this will be Haroun’s Asian Games debut. The 21-year-old former Sudanese looks on course for the gold.

Hima Das v Naser

Like Anas v Haroun, the Hima Das v Naser duel in the women’s 400m would be worth waiting for. Naser had remained unbeaten this season through six races before being beaten in Monaco by Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas. But Naser clocked a personal best of 49.08s there, a national record.

Having caught the attention of the Indian public, unfamiliar to success of our athletes at the global level, with her stunning display in the World Under-20 championships at Tampere, Finland, in July, Hima would be under pressure to live up to her new tag of the ‘unbeatable’ athlete over the final 80 metres of a 400m race. It would be the biggest shock of the Games if the diminutive Naser is beaten by the 18-year-old Indian who has a best of 51.13s.

Hima Das’s progression through less than one year has left many baffled. It would be wise to wait for a few more years to see where the Assam girl could be headed. She is scheduled to compete in the 200m also in Jakarta though there she might find the going tougher than in the longer event.

A couple of horizontal jumpers among men would be strong medal contenders for India. Long jumper M. Sreeshankar had reportedly crossed eight metres in training in Thiruvananthapuram and there was talk of him reaching 8.40m in the Games. That looks unlikely, though.

With two Chinese having crossed eight metres this season, Wang Jianan (8.47) and Zhang Yaoguang (8.27) in excellent form in the run-up, Sreeshankar’s task is cut out. He had to undergo a surgery before the Commonwealth Games, forcing him to miss what could have been a big moment in his fledgling career. Asian Games provides him another chance. A medal here will boost his morale.

Arpinder up against Chinese

Triple jumper Arpinder Singh who pushed past 17 metres this season after a four-year gap from his then national-record breaking feat of 17.17m in Lucknow, will have to tackle Chinese Zhu Yaming who is a 17-plus jumper and another experienced Chinese Cao Shuo, who has done 16.80m this season. The Indian has worked hard this season to come into reckoning for the highest honours.

 The women’s 1500m runner, P. U. Chithra, who had to endure the agony of being omitted from the team for last year’s World championships, under controversial circumstances, leads the field with her time of 4: 11.55. The line-up looks ordinary and Chithra should have her chance. But as said earlier, middle distance races are hard to predict. In the worst case, the Kerala woman should land a medal.

In distance events, too, India should have good chances in both men and women to gain minor medals. G. Lakshmanan, who already has an Asiad medal, starts in 5000m and 10,000m while L. Suriya and Saniivani Jadhav would be the contenders in the women’s distance events.

Distance events

On the opening day, the two Indian women would be battling with Kyrgyzstan’s Daria Maslova, the double gold winner in the Asians in Bhubaneswar. Once again Maslova should start the favourite though both Indians should fancy their chances of getting onto the podium.

Steeplechasers Sudha Singh (SB 9:39.59) and Chinta Yadav (SB 9:55.41) have been primed after their high-altitude training stint in Thimphu, Bhutan. How much they and others have gained will be known through the next six days. They could be handicapped since there was no competition in Bhutan and they had to just train since the Guwahati meet in June-end.

Bahrain’s Kenya-born Winfred Yavi (SB and PB 9:10.74), eighth at the World Championships last year, leads the steeplechase lists in Asia. She has clocked two other timings below 9:17 this season.

Discus Seema Antil’s form is not known. She had won the lone individual gold for India last time. She took the silver in the Commonwealth Games and then reportedly went off to Russia for training. She had touched a form hitherto not seen at home by crossing 61 metres in Fed Cup. Two Chinese are in top form. Chen Yang (67.03m) and Feng Bin (64.58m), both finalists at Rio Olympics, look poised to regain their country’s supremacy in the event. Chen Yang won the last Asian championships, with a throw of 60.41 while Seema finished a disappointing sixth with 54.11. Seema has an enormous task to defend her gold. How well the relatively unknown second Indian entry, Sandeep Kumari (PB 58.41m) would fare would be keenly awaited. She had to clear the ‘confirmatory trials’ to book her berth in the team. Her name was not even entered in the long list initially and the federation had to make extra efforts to get her name included.

Sprinter Dutee Chand has talked of compensating for her disappointments in 2014 when she was not eligible because of the hyperandrogenism issue. With a best of 11.29s (National record) Dutee is among the top four in Asia this season. Defending champion Wei Yongli of China heads the lists with 10.99s followed by Bahrain’s Hajar Saad Al-Khaldi (11.17s) and Kazakh Viktoriya Zyabkina (11.20s).

The liberal funding provided by the government for 400m runners and javelin throwers in Europe plus the middle and long distance runners in Bhutan, despite the lack of adequate competitions for preparing the athletes towards a competition like this, should show results now. “We couldn’t peak twice, once for Commonwealth Games and for the Asian Games” has often been heard in the past. Coaches know how to bring their wards into peak form for the all-important championships.
The doping menace that threatened to engulf the Indian squad in the run-up to the Games fortunately did not spread beyond a point. The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) did well to test athletes training abroad in Europe and elsewhere though the 'missions' could have been carried out a little earlier than they happened for them to be really effective.
The Commonwealth Games episode of two athletes being expelled from the games because of the breach of 'no-needle' policy must have enlightened the athletes this time of avoiding such incidents. The country's prestige is involved in such games. The IOA has taken enough precautions this time if reports are to be believed. Any repeat of 'needles in living quarters' will only re-establish India as a front-runner in doping in the world of sports.

(concluded)

India has high hopes on its athletes in Asiad (Part I)

Representative pic_Courtesy-G. Rajaraman

When athletics was set to begin last time at the Incheon Asian Games, India had won just one gold, through shooter Jitu Rai. Though athletics produced only two gold in a total gold tally of 11, the sport, as in the past, contributed the maximum to India’s final medals tally: Two gold, four silver and seven bronze for a total of 13.

How many can Indian athletes win this time? By Aug 24 evening, on the eve of athletics action, the Indian medals tally in the 2018 Games stood at six gold, five silver and 14 bronze. India was at eighth place in the medals table with a total of 25 medals.

Obviously, fans and the media were assessing how many more gold medals India can have from these Games in the second half. Despite its contingent size in the past, not to speak of talent pool and Government support, India had not been able to convincingly show its sports prowess at the continental level, often finishing behind countries like Kazakhstan and Iran, among others, leading to criticism that not enough was being done to promote Olympic sports in the country.

This time, though, there has been a concerted effort to put up an improved show compared to Incheon in 2014. Though there were selection controversies and quite a few disappointments so far, there has been some top-class performances, too.

Can the track and field athletes match them? Or can they better what had been achieved by their predecessors?

18-20 medals expected

There had been no official forecasts by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) or the Sports Authority of India (SAI) regarding medal chances but officials have been optimistic about India getting around 18 to 20 medals from track and field. This can go horribly wrong if things don't turn out true to expectations. Many of us will recall what went wrong in Sydney Olympics 18 years ago or, closer to the present, the Rio Olympics when a solitary athlete (steeplechaser Lalita Babar) made the final.

In internal assessments, officials have listed six events in which India is expected to have the best chance to win gold medals: Tejinder Pal Singh Toor in shot put (he competes on the opening day on 25 August), Neeraj Chopra in javelin, Purnima Hembram in heptathlon and the three 4x400m relays including the newly-introduced mixed relay.

Let’s take these events first to analyze before moving onto others.

Men's  shot put: 

Tejinder Pal Singh Toor is the Asian leader since putting 20.24m in the Federation Cup at Patiala on March 6. He has, however, steadily slumped after that, with 19.42m for eighth place in the Commonwealth Games, and 19.37m for gold in the inter-State meet at Guwahati, which served as the final selection trials for the Asian Games.

The No. 2 in Asia this season is Iranian Shahin Mehrdelan with 19.92m. Once you come to know his best so far had been only 17.42m last year, and he had served a two-year doping suspension in 2014, you lose some interest in the 23-year-old.

Mehrdelan’s team-mate, Ali Samari, pulled off a surprise at the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar last year with a personal best of 19.80m that was enough for the gold. That happened to be his only valid throw in a competition in which Toor claimed the silver at 19.77m. Samari (SB 18.98m) does not have a record of ‘high’19.00m throws, with 19.42 indoors being his next best to his Bhubaneswar effort.

Notwithstanding the presence of Asian record (21.13m) holder Sultan Abdulmajeed Al-Hebshi of Saudi Arabia, Toor should start the favourite once again as he was in Bhubaneswar. Al-Hebshi, like many shot putters in the continent including our own Om Prakash Singh, has found it difficult to reach the 20-metre range in recent years.

If by any chance, Toor finds it difficult to reach even 19 metres, which is possible going by the track record of other Asian leaders, and India’s own shot putters in the past, the field could be thrown open for anyone to cash in on. The second man in the Indian team, Naveen Chikara (PB and SB 19.57m) could not come out of the slump he was in despite getting a retrial and was left out. He could do only 18-metre-plus throws as against the qualification standard of 19.50m.

Men’s javelin: For months now, everyone had one name on their lips to forecast a gold medal for Indian athletics: Neeraj Chopra. Since reaching a world junior record in the 2016 World-Under-20 championships with a throw of 86.48m, Chopra has risen in stature in great style. Today he is talked of by rivals as one youngster capable of joining the 90-metre club sooner than later. He is among the top six in the world in the Diamond League standings and has been invited for the finals. He has thrown 85 metres or better five times this season, with a new personal best and national record of 87.43m at the Doha Damond League meeting where he stood fourth.

Chopra’s sheer consistency makes him the overwhelming favourite in Jakarta. Though there is one man who has crossed 90 metres in Asia, Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Chao-Tsun, the latter does not have the consistency of the 20-year-old Indian to be rated a serious challenger. He has a season best of 84.60m.

A more consistent performer has been Qatari Ahmed Bader Magour. The 22-year-old Egypt-born thrower has a best of 85.23m recorded last year and has two throws over 83.00m this season with an 83.71m for seventh at the Doha DL being his season best.

In Liu Qizhen (81.70m) and Ma Qun (82.46m) China has two capable javelin throwers who could get among the minor medals.

India’s second entry, Shivpal Singh, 23, has not done anything of note since his PB of 82.28 at Guwhati that earned him qualification. Singh, who had trained with other Indian javelin throwers in Finland, could be a medal contender if he is able to come close to that; otherwise he will join many others ahead of him as ones who produced the odd 82-metre throw and could not sustain his improvement.

Women’s heptathlon: Purnima Hembram has been on a steady climb this season. Beginning with her PB of 5815 points in the Fed Cup, the 25-year-old Odisha athlete had improved it to 5834 for seventh in the Commonwealth Games and added a few more points in reaching 5898 at Guwahati for qualification to the Asiad.

The 6000-point mark should come soon for Purnima and the other Indian in the fray, Swapna Barman, the Asian champion, who has come back from injury this season and has a tally of 5725 in making the grade. Her best is 5942 at Bhubaneswar last year.

The Asian heptathlon standards have fallen this year. Only Chinese Wang Qingling, Hembram’s closest challenger, is over 5800 this season along with the Indian. Last year there were three over 5900 points with Wang Qingling at a PB of 6033. Japanese Megu Hemphill who finished second in Bhubaneswar has not made it to Jakarta, probably injured.

The 4x400m relays:

India has won the women’s 4x400m relay gold for the past three editions of the Games. In the normal course India would have been considered the odds-on favourite for the gold this time, too. If there is a possible change in script it is only because of the perch that Bahrain’s Nigeria-born 400m runner, Salwa Eid Naser, occupies in the year’s lists.

Apart from her, Bahrain, unlike in the past, has also assembled, it would seem, a strong women’s 4x400m relay team with the addition of two 400m hurdlers in the acknowledged Kemi Adekoya, and the 21-year-old Aminat Yousef Jamal Odeyemi (400m SB 53.02s), also of Nigerian origin.

Adekoya, who won the 400m-400m hurdles double at the last Games in Incheon, who was in poor form at the beginning of the season, seems to have rounded into fine shape just in time, having season best 55.45s in the 400m hurdles and 53.38s in the 400m flat.

Added to this three-some would be Ofonime Odiong, essentially a 100-200 sprinter who has run the 4x400m relay also in the past.

The Indian team could be having Hima Das, M. R.Poovamma and Sarita Gaykwad along with V. K. Vismaya, the last-named having come through a trial on Aug 24 to determine who could be the fourth runner. How Gayakwad who has a season best of only 53.24 has been kept away from the time trials in Jakarta would come into question.

As per AFI’s policy of keeping the ‘non-campers’ out of the relays, Nirmala Sheoran, has reportedly been excluded at the time of writing but you never know with these policies and pronouncements. Nirmala’s own form would be judged on the opening day when the 400m heats are scheduled.

India still looks strong, having clocked 3:33.23 without Hima Das and Nirmala in Kladno, Czech Republic, on July 29. But nothing can be taken for granted when the likes of Naser (PB 49.08) and Adekoya are running. Bahrain, however, does not have much of a history in relay running in women’s 4x400m.

Qatar looks strong in men's 4x400

The Indian men’s 4x400m team also could be tested severely by the Qatari team. The top three 400m runners in the Asian lists this season are from Qatar! Abdelelah Haroun at 44.07s, Abderrahmane Samba, the better known 400m hurdler, at 44.62 and Mohammad Nasser Abbas at 45.15. Then comes India’s Muhammed Anas with 45.24s. The three Qataris could be joined by a fourth runner who might not be in the same league but the team would still be the one to beat. Incidentally, Samba is unbeaten in the hurdles this season with a world-leading 46.98s in Lausanne as his best.

India’s fortunes will hinge on Anas’s form and that of the No. 2 man, Arokia Rajiv. Anas had hit the headlines, finishing fourth in the Commonwealth Games in a national record 45.31s which he further cut to 45.24s in the Czech Republic. Both he and Rajiv had been concentrating on their speed by running a few 200m in the final weeks of preparations in Europe rather than continuing with the 400m.

The mixed relay, a novelty in Asian Games, but which had been tried out in the World Relays, is going to be a fight between India and Bahrain. India has good runners in both men and women’s sections while Bahrain has one good male runner in Abbas Abubaker (SB 45.77s) to go with their awesome female runners, probably Naser and Aminat Jamal. It will be an interesting race in which India is expected to have the edge. If Hima Das is not available for the mixed race as had been mentioned in reports initially (since dismissed by AFI), the Indian team would be considerably weakened.

(Contd Part II) 

Draft legislation is ready; dope-traffickers beware!

The draft of the anti-doping law is ready according to this TOI report:

Mercifully, there is no proposal to send athletes to jail as was widely speculated and claimed previously. Even the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) chief, Adille Sumariwalla, had given his thumbs up to the proposal to send athletes to jail for doping offences.

“For the last three years, I have been pushing the Government to do it.

“They should be giving credit to Adille Sumariwalla for this. I had said that anybody caught giving dope to athletes should be put in jail. The same for athletes, they should be in jail too,” Sumariwalla was quoted as saying.

 Traffickers, suppliers to be punished

The current proposal, going by the information given by the drafting panel chairman, Justice Mukul Mudgal (retd) is to punish the suppliers, traffickers and ‘syndicates’.

Justice Mudgal, talking to TOI, informed that the proposed legislation has been drafted with a view to “protect the athletes from the menace of doping.

“There are two things One is where athletes get involved accidentally because the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) keeps changing the list of prohibited substances every six months on its website. Many athletes have been caught in this web. Then, there is a lack of knowledge about many substances which athletes take. So, the key point is education. Educating the athlete is very important. The legislation tries to grab persons involved in doping or are part of these syndicates,” he was quoted as saying.

It is imperative that any legislation should go after the suppliers and people who abet doping. In any case, WADA’s stand on sending athletes to jail is well known. The world body does not like the idea of prison terms for athletes. Instead, it has encouraged stakeholders to punish the coaches, support personnel, suppliers etc. Several coaches, world-wide, have been black-listed through a published list, some of them banned for life. No Indian coach has, however, ever been sanctioned by NADA through an anti-doping rule violation case. Coaches have been sacked by the Government, though. Unfortunately, they are often brought back by the same government after a few years. There is no black-listing of such coaches.

It is a tough job, though. Pinning down a coach or a trainer or a physio or a masseur is not so easy unless there are credible witnesses, documentary or video evidence or a law-enforcement agency implicates him/her in a trafficking case. What can happen in a court of law is to be seen only. Needless to say, with our legal system taking its own time to dispose of cases, these dope-related issues can drag on. Unless there is a special court to try the offenders.  Let the Government and Parliament tackle the issue in the coming months.

One point that attracted the attention of anti-doping campaigners including this journalist was part of the above statement by Justice Mudgal: “There are two things. One is where athletes get involved accidentally because of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) keeps changing the list of prohibited substances every six months on its website. Many athletes have been caught in this web.”.

This is debatable. Coming from an eminent retired chief justice who previously conducted an enquiry into the episode of six woman quarter-milers testing positive in 2011, who is an expert in sports law, formerly a member of the arbitrators in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and now the chairman of the panel appointed by the Government to draft an anti-doping law, this is bound to add to the existing confusion about who is the real culprit.

Ever since WADA started publishing laboratory statistics (later testing figures) in 2003, anabolic steroids have topped the list of banned substances that athletes use the world over. The trend has continued. From 2004, when WADA took control of the Prohibited List, to date, there have been yearly revision of the Prohibited List through a detailed process. (Not every six months as Justice Mudgal has stated). The List is first published by WADA by October 1 every year to come into effect on January 1 next year.

Steroids top world-wide

Indian athletes have maintained the world-wide trend as far as choice of drugs for doping purposes is concerned. An overwhelming number of steroid cases come up every year. Anabolic agents contributed 1813 (44%) of the ‘positive’ cases in 2017 as per WADA figures published recently.

Of the total of 803 adverse analytical findings available on the NADA website to date, at least 510 cases are that of steroids/anabolic agents (63.5%). Stimulants (136, 16.9%) and diuretics and other masking agents (55, 6.8%) contribute the next major share.

From 2009 to this day, at least in the Indian doping context, there is not a single new steroid for which an Indian athlete has tested positive. It is the same old stanozolol, nandrolone, testosterone, methandienone, drostanolone and boldenone etc year after year. An occasional metenolone or mesterolone is thrown in to remind us that the Indian dopers are not entirely sticking to the beaten path.

In the NADA chart that contains 800-plus cases, there is not a single case of steroids methyltrionolone, methyldioneolone, methylstenbolone, oxabolone or methasterone, all added to the WADA Prohibited List post-2004.

Is it right then to presume that our athletes are unaware of the new drugs being added to the Prohibited List periodically and thus fall victim? Athletes often make you believe_and sometimes top sportsmen contribute to this line of argument_ that when they take medicines prescribed for common ailments like cold and fever or stomach upset they fear falling victim to anti-doping rules. This is not true. 
Paracetamol (for fever) is something everyone uses and an athlete can also use freely without apprehensions if it is just plain paracetamol. Among cough syrups, Ascoril Expectorant contains terbutaline, a banned drug in sports, but you can have Mucolite (Ambroxol) or Lupihist (diphenhydramine citrate) without breaching anti-doping rules. These are just a few examples among dozens of 'safe' medicines mentioned here not in an effort to guide athletes or to claim any knowledge, but to disprove the oft-repeated argument that athletes cannot even take cough syrups! An athlete can always approach a doctor, explain to him/her the need to be cautious about prohibited drugs and avoid worries.

Was there an instance during a hearing in India that an athlete claimed he/she was unaware of a particular drug having been added to the list only the previous year or two years earlier and hence had tested positive?

Athletes mostly tell hearing panels, if they do not say “I don’t know how it got in”, something like “I am unaware of the Prohibited List. No one told me about WADA or NADA rules.”

Steroids were added to the Prohibited List by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1975. The IOC was the authority during those days to regulate anti-doping measures. WADA was born in 1999 but it took control over the Prohibited List only in 2004 the year in which the World Anti-Doping Code (Code) came into effect.

Athletes are generally unfamiliar with the long list of drugs included in the WADA list. Not just in India but in a majority of the rest of the world. Most of the drugs are unheard of unless you happen to specialize in WADA-prohibited drugs or else are an athlete who is interested in consuming a particular drug to enhance performance.

Just sample this: Oxymetholone, norboletone, oxabolone, oxymesterone, calusterone, methyldienolone, methylstenbolone, miboloerone, boladione and 19-noretiocholanolone among steroids, and methylenedioxymethamphetamine, norfenfluramine, mefenorex, 4-phenylpiracetam and phendimetrazine among stimulants.

Even if an athlete had seen the latest WADA list, will he/she be able to make out these above medicines? Unless he/she had been looking out for the choicest steroids or have heard about a new drug in the market that could "work wonders". Can a parent or a coach make out what are these drugs for without knowing the commercial equivalents? Will all doctors be able to relate the hundreds of drugs listed in the WADA document to medicines that they normally prescribe without referring to any book at all? NADA used to have a generic-name-commercial-name compilation on its website, but it looks to have been discarded.

Inadvertent ingestion of a banned substance by athletes is always a possibility. That is why authorities warn athletes of taking supplements and also about self-medication. Educating the athlete becomes important here. NADA has been putting in more efforts in this sphere during the past couple of years but there is always room for improvement. Private organisations including those comprising doctors or pharmaceutical companies can also contribute, not by holding seminars and inviting ‘experts’ to talk to a limited audience but by arranging such talks at national training camps or national championships.

NADA website needs improvement

NADA can, at the same time, help athletes by providing information on its website, about new substances, supplements, doping methods etc and the risks involved. There is no warning there, however, about latest contamination possibilities being discussed across the world. A drug reference online system has been in the pipeline and is expected to be implemented by the year-end, but the website contents remain below-average.

“Then, there is a lack of knowledge about many substances which athletes take. So, the key point is education,” the TOI report quotes Justice Mudgal.

Contaminated supplements seem to be the main villain in the “lack of education” theme. Obviously, we cannot expect athletes to prescribe medicines themselves and consume them. Many blame it on a colleague or coach or forgets to get a prescription from a doctor. Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) by which an athlete can use banned substances, if medically required, on an advance approval from a panel, is rare in Indian anti-doping.

Supplements can be tricky. No matter how many warnings are issued, athletes feel the need to take them. The Government spends money on supplements. Now, there is an attempt to provide “safe supplements” through a certifying system by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). We will have to see how far it works, not just in reducing incidents of “inadvertent doping” through supplements but also in providing the “boost” that athletes are looking for.

According to the TOI report: “Any person who indulges in supply of prohibited substance to an athlete on a regular basis for commercial purposes shall be guilty of the offence of ‘trafficking’ and shall be punished with simple imprisonment which may extend to one year and shall also be liable for a fine which may extend to Rs 10 lakh.”

It is good that traffickers would be chased and penalized. It might help reduce incidents of doping. But in a country where Winstrol (stanozolol, of the Ben Johnson fame) and Deca-Durabolin (nandrolone), to name just two commonly-abused steroids, are freely available in chemists shops, without prescription, why would any athlete go in search of a “supplier” to get his/her base quota of steroids?

Moreover, when confronted with a doping charge, athletes have produced prescriptions from bona fide medical parctitioners or hospitals in past hearings. Take the case of sprinter Sharadha Narayana in 2010. She was prescribed tablet Menabol (stanozolol) and injection Winstrol (stanozolol) by a Chennai hospital doctor for knee pain. The disciplinary panel accepted her explanation and reprieved her, but WADA’s appeal before an Indian appeal panel was upheld and she was suspended for two years.

Or take the case of Simarjit Singh, a kabaddi player from Amritsar, who tested positive for 19-norandrosterone (nandrolone) in March, 2016. He produced hospital outpatient registration document and doctor’s prescription for nandrolone decanoate (injection) and was given a reduced sanction of two years instead of the standard four. The panel accepted his argument that he suffered from acute back pain because of a prolapsed disc.

There have been dozens of cases like these from 2009 till now.

Easy access to steroids

Steroid preparations and other WADA-prohibited drugs are easily available around the NIS, Patiala. The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) or local health authorities have raided such shops in the past whenever major doping scandals have erupted. After some time, it is business back to normal.

The proposed law might require either strict enforcement of rules for chemists to sell prescription drugs or else new restrictions on sale of steroids or both. It is easy to say but almost impossible to implement.

One area where authorities might be able to penalize coaches, support staff and suppliers would be in the distribution of drugs imported illegally. Coaches and athletes are known to bring in mainly “Russian” drugs while on trips abroad for competitions or training. In the past there had been an attempt to co-ordinate efforts with the Customs to impound consignments at airports. But pre-publicity given by NADA to such a collaboration seemed to have alerted potential traffickers and nothing was heard of it later.

Despite all the talk of designer drugs and advanced technology and methods having contributed to increased levels of performance of the athletes abroad (“US, Russia and several European countries have advanced methods to dope, we suffer because of outdated methods and forgotten drugs” is an oft-repeated comment by “experts”), when a Lance Armstrong is exposed or a Floyd Landis is caught doping, it turns out they were onto trusted, age-old methods and drugs.

Those drugs, from stanozolol to testosterone, from nandrolone to methandienone and from stimulants to diuretics or Beta-2 Agonists (found in asthma medications) are all freely available in India. Neighbourhood gym instructors will provide you some steroids if you find it difficult to procure. Misuse had led to deaths according to reports.

The abuse of steroids has reached such proportions that an anti-doping law might find it hard to curb. Mere elimination of “suppliers” from sports camps might not work. No country has so far sent an athlete to jail though many have provisions for it. The Indian and foreign coaches might become more cautious, looking at the prospects of spending some time in jail if caught peddling steroids etc. A stricter steroid law might be required or else regular raids on gyms and chemists shops for the proposed anti-doping law to become more effective.

The wait now would be for the anti-doping law to come into effect. One can only hope that the supply system, if that is required for steroids to reach athletes, would be dismantled and Indian athletes would flourish on the world stage on their own steam without the aid of dope or being chased by WADA and others. Or for that matter, India would get out of the top-10 bracket of the world's dopers' list. In 2016 the country was joint sixth with Russia, after having occupied the third place for three years from 2013.
(Updated on 9 Aug, 2018)

NADA harps on 'quality testing' (Part II)

(Part I is here)

NADA practically ignored athletics in 2017 when it came to competitions. It collected a meagre number of samples at the National Inter-State last year and skipped the Open National at Chennai altogether! It managed a limited number of samples in the inter-University championships, that too after being asked to rush since there happened to be a senior national record by high jumper Tejaswin Shankar, and missed the National cross-country meet.

This year, too, there has been a reluctance to test in athletics competitions.  NADA failed to reach on the opening day of the Fed Cup, selection trials for Commonwealth Games, at Patiala. Then, the Junior Federation Cup, one was told, was restricted to a mere 20 samples and the senior Inter-State, the selection trials for the Asian Games, to around 40-50.

NADA officials told AFI officials at Guwahati that it was “target testing” athletes and it was not going after medal-winners. Target-testing athletes at a championship, instead of doing it out-of-competition which is the normal practice the world over, must be a new methodology that NADA has developed.

But is it sufficient to collect 40 to 50 samples at a major National meet having 42 events? That, too, when national team selection is at stake?

Only NADA would be able to explain the “intelligence” that goes into the making of such a strategy!

NADA testing in athletics: 2017
Jan	National School Games	Pune
	All-India Inter-University Championships	Coimbatore
Feb	National racewalking championships	New Delhi
	Chief Minister’s State-level championship	Madurai
April	National Youth championships	Hyderabad
May	Indian GP I	Patiala
	Indian GP II	New Delhi
	Indian GP III	New Delhi
June	Fed Cup championships	Patiala
July	National Inter-State championships	Guntur
August	Inter-Services championships	Bengaluru
Dec	SGFI Schools championship	Rohtak
	All-India Police championship	Dehradun

Source: NADA

A hint of the reasons behind such negligence of athletics is available in the NADA official’s explanation to the paper.

I have mentioned this earlier, but it merits repetition here since for the second successive year “target testing” is being bandied about as though someone in NADA has suddenly stumbled upon this great idea. “Let’s target the most obvious candidates first, let’s include them in our RTP”, seems to be the ‘brilliant strategy’ that has helped NADA tighten the screws on dopers.

Only 100-odd top sportspersons?

“We have only about 100-odd sportspersons who compete at the Olympics, World championships and the big events. How many times in a year will you test them after testing the same persons 10-20 times in a year? the official was quoted as saying. The focus, the report concluded, was on “target-testing”.

Target-testing has been part of WADA Code for ages as mentioned in previous blog pieces; it is there in the NADA rules as well. There is nothing sensational or innovative in target-testing. That is the very essence of out-of-competition testing based on “intelligence” gathered from fellow athletes, coaches, officials etc.

In-competition testing should ideally be based on placings plus a random method. Athletes would be tempted to use stimulants once they know that testing is absent or lax. Some of them might deliberately finish out of the top medals bracket or even skip a meet completely when they know testing is going to be strict. The testers have to take on-the-spot decisions as far as random selection is concerned, not sit there and study what the Head Office had written down as instructions.

But let us get back to that statement. There is a crucial figure there: “10-20 times in a year”. That is a fantastic achievement if this figure is correct and if it does not include ‘in-competition’ testing.

‘In-competition’ testing will be based on placings. Normally they are. If an athlete keeps winning, he or she is bound to be tested in the normal course. Two senior National championships in athletics plus the Fed Cup and a couple of Indian Grand Prix meets would mean around half a dozen meets for an athlete and that many number of tests if he/she wins and NADA follows the traditional pattern.

Intelligent athlete

The ‘intelligent athlete’ will not come into a competition stuffed with steroids or having had an early-morning shot of EPO. In this ‘hide and seek’ business, getting one or two ‘positive’ results from a national championship is a difficult task. NADA would have realized this in recent months when their efforts have borne little fruit.

That leaves us with ‘out-of-competition testing’. That is the bedrock on which anti-doping efforts should be mounted. That plus the RTP.

If an athlete is tested around 15 times out of competition a year that would be quite an effort towards weeding out the cheats. You don’t have to do it in all sports, do it in the top two “doping sports” for the present, athletics and weightlifting.

Are our athletes being tested enough? Are the athletes in the RTP list being tested regularly? Was quarter-miler Nirmala Sheoran tested at all during the five months in which she was in the RTP? These questions will be irrelevant if NADA publishes its annual statistics along with a list of athletes tested and the periods when they were tested, as mandated by its own rules and the WADA Code.
Or else NADA can go more transparent and emulate the USADA which provides an athlete's 'test history', updated on a weekly basis, on its website. For example, currently one can know Justin Gatlin has been tested three times in the second quarter of 2018 and gone through nine tests in all in 2018 (Up to 27 July).
Claims of 10 to 20 times of each athlete being tested every year by NADA will then have more credibility. 
There is an apparent notion now within NADA that the Biological Passport (ABP), started only this year and for which 33 samples were collected in 2017, would be the solution to athletes escaping tests or “disappearing”.  The belief  seems to be that even after nine months of disappearance as was the case with a leading woman quarter-miler, NADA would be able to pin the athlete down through ABP.

That might not be so easy. To sanction an athlete only based on variations in passport is a difficult task. NADA can “target-test” the athlete or else carry out more sophisticated tests on a particular athlete’s sample repeatedly to catch him/her.

This can partially be achieved through RTP also till such time the ABP programme is fine-tuned and NADA is able to bring forward cases bases on passport abnormalities alone.

But before anything else, NADA has to shed its inhibitions about collecting larger number of samples. Niti Aayog had advised it to collect 5000 samples in 2017. NADA increased its target, announced it would test  7000 samples but also put a rider: It will depend on enhanced manpower and additional budgetary allocation. That apparently did not materialize and hence the total of 2964 urine samples last year.

Is there a resource crunch?

If funds are a problem then the Sports Ministry needs to urgently dispel such misgivings. Niti Aayog would be too willing to help given the initiative it had taken in April last year. NADA has of late increased its manpower. More would be welcome.

Athletics has topped the Indian doping list in 2014 (29), 2016 (23) and 2017 (21), taking second place in 2015 (24) behind weightlifting (56). Yet, athletics, with an out-of-competition tally of 229 samples was even behind boxing (270 OOC samples) in 2017 testing.

It is imperative that NADA concentrates on athletics instead of on other sports, especially non-Olympic sports unless there is a strategy to avoid athletics and beef up annual testing numbers through other sports.

One ‘significant’ claim by the NADA official is about more Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) tests having been employed in 2017 to determine variations in markers of steroid profiles. “We have increased the number of tests to 79 for markers of steroid profile which enhanced the detection rate to 6 per cent in these cases. The corresponding global detection rate is only 3 per cent,” the official has been quoted.

The truth is, the percentage was 44 (no less!), in 2016 in NADA testing, 11 positive cases out of 25 samples including nine out of 16 in ‘in-competition’ tests.

As for other NADOs in 2017 IRMS testing for markers for steroid profiling, Australia had five out of 71 samples (7%), France 10 out of 113 (9%), NADO Flanders (Belgium) four out of 55 (13%), Iran seven of 54 (13%), Chile four of 40 (10%) and Ukraine four of 12 (33%), among others.

Indian athletics churns out world-class results in the run-up to big championships every other year. Unless these are repeated or bettered or athletes come close to their best at home in Olympics or World Championships, Indian athletics will continue to lose credibility. NADA needs to contribute towards arresting this trend. “Quality testing” is fine as long as it is directed towards “quality’ which cannot come from departmental meets or under-19 tournaments. To begin with, NADA can devote their energy towards athletes in its RTP (shockingly brought down from 64 to 25 in May this year). Test them about six to eight times a year out of competition. Of course, most of them would be abroad when NADA starts looking for them! Can’t NADA test them in countries like Poland, Finland and Bhutan?

 (Concluded)

Updated: 27 July, 2018