Russia, Turkey, India top doping sanctions list

Russia, Turkey and India led the ‘dopers’ brigade in the world in 2013.

In its first ever anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) report, released on June 16, the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has given details of the adverse analytical findings (AAFs) in each sport, country-wise, and also worked out the ADRVs. An ADRV would mean a sanction for a doping violation.

Russia, recently in the news related to doping issues, with a German television channel expose revealing alleged official involvement in doping in athletics, topped the charts with 225 ADRVs, followed by Turkey with 188 and India with 95 in figures released by WADA for 2013.

The overall percentages when compared with the number of samples tested, the efforts of the WADA and the International Federations in combating doping in sports and the funds being pumped into the exercise, remained on the lower side.

A total of 207, 513 samples were tested in 2013, as per information gathered by WADA, with 2540 of them (1.22 %) turning up adverse analytical findings. Of these 1687 (0.81%) ended in analytical ADRVs. Another 266 ADRVs came from non-analytical routes (‘whereabouts’ failures, evasion, trafficking etc), adding up to a total of 1953 ADRVs.

Poor out-of-competition testing success

The lack of adequate out-of-competition testing world-wide showed up in the figures. In a total of 1687 analytical ADRVs, only 366 came from out-of-competition testing, just 21.69 per cent. WADA-accredited laboratories tested a total of 200824 urine samples in 2013, of which 80,433 were out-of-competition samples. They also tested 6689 blood samples.

It has generally been believed that the best period to catch the dopers would be during their training phase but either because of lack of planning or because of lack of effort or both, out-of-competition testing success has largely remained modest in the anti-doping sphere.

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) of India which tested 4274 samples in 2013 managed to sanction just six athletes from its out-of-competition testing while getting 85 punished by hearing panels from in-competition testing. In its total of 95 ADRVs there were four non-analytical ones for India. The Indian NADA had 93 AAFs in total with 90 of them ending up in ADRVs, an impressive percentage of cases brought to sanction by NADA.

The Indian NADO is yet to begin ‘whereabouts’ information-based testing, but a beginning has been made to gather information in athletics recently. Once such testing starts the out-of-competing testing in India will naturally gain additional teeth.

Athletics contributes 30 to Indian tally

From the 95 ADRVs in India, athletics contributed 30, the maximum, with weightlifting occupying the second slot with 19. Wrestling had nine and bodybuilding and powerlifting eight each. Surprisingly, kabaddi, rather famous for its large percentage of ‘positive’ cases through the circle style World Cup conducted in Punjab, turned in only two ADRVs in 2013.

Russia’s 225 ADRVs mainly came from athletics (42), powerlifting (35), wrestling (32), weightlifting (26), cycling (19) and aquatics (14). Fifty-two of the Russians sanctioned were caught in out-of-competition testing while there were 13 non-analytical ADRVs in the Russian figure that was more than double of India’s.

Interestingly, Turkey, where athletics again occupied the top slot with 53 ADRVs, had as many as 33 non-analytical ADRVs, in its tally of 188, the highest in that category among all countries. Weightlifting contributed 48 to the Turkish account.

From among the leading nations in the Olympic sphere, USA’s 43 had 11 from out-of-competition testing while Britain’s 23 had eight from out of competition. US Anti-Doping Agency’s contribution of sanctioned athletes during this period was 61 while that of UKAD was 15, the others coming from the international federations.

Ukraine NADO did just nine tests

That a country like Ukraine which took the 14th place in medals tally at the London Olympics in 2012 with six gold, five silver and nine bronze medals could manage only nine tests through its National Anti Doping Organization which eventually led to one ADRV should lead to a review by WADA about the set-up there.

Ukraine had 26 ADRVs in all including seven non-analytical ones, of course 25 of them coming from outside agencies. In comparison, countries like Gautemala (176 tests), Macau (22), Niger (10), Costa Rica (126) and Luxembourg (224) which did not get a medal in the last Olympics carried out more dope tests by their anti-doping agencies at home.

The Mexican example

A curious example is also presented by the Mexican NADO which came up with 73 ‘positive’ cases from just 101 samples (72.27%) but ended up with only two ADRVs! Forty-nine cases are pending there! Twenty-two of the original 73 AAFs ended up without a sanction! Elsewhere, in international testing, two other Mexicans were also sanctioned.

Athletics led the table for sports, with 280, of which 45 were non-analytical ADRVs from a total of 24942 samples.  Weightlifting with 252 including four non-analytical cases, from 8533 samples, followed. Cycling (203 from 22252 samples), wrestling (101), football (86 from 28002 samples), judo (41) and boxing (40) were the other major offenders among Summer Olympic sports.

Badminton had two positive cases

Interestingly, badminton, a physically-demanding sport, had just two positive cases and one sanctioned athlete (a Belgian) from its 1264 tests. The other case ended up in a reprieve. There were 504 urine samples collected out of competition in badminton.

In comparison, tennis had 14 AAFs from 3476 samples from which eight ended up in sanctions and table tennis had 10 AAFs from 1035 samples from which seven culminated in punishments.

Squash, a non-Olympic sport, had three adverse findings from 370 samples all of which ended up in sanctions.

If you thought power sports or physically more draining events would automatically contribute more ‘positives’ compared to ‘skill’ sports, then have a look at this. Rowing turned in 17 AAFs, culminating in 10 ADRVs from 4343 samples while shooting had 18 AAFs and 11 ADRVs, with six of them being reprieved since they had valid therapeutic use exemption (TUE) documents.

Golf produced two AAFs from 483 samples with one ending up in a punishment and the other being let off as “no case to answer”, meaning it could have ended at the ‘results management’ level (excluding TUE cases). Such cases, WADA explained, included authorized route of administration for glucocorticosteroids (e.g. cortisone) and departure from international standards.

Hockey, it may be of interest to Indian fans, had two AAFs and one ADRV, while cricket had nine AAFs, ending up in five sanctions.

Cricket, by the way, is a fully Code-compliant sport recognized by WADA, contrary to the oft-assumed notion in India that it is not WADA-rule compliant. All the member units of the ICC including the Indian Board are thus deemed to be Code compliant.

(amended 18 June, 2015)