'Testing time' for Indian athletes as IAAF picks five for its RTP & NADA chips in with 64

Long jumper Nayana James (pic) is among five Indian athletes chosen by the IAAF for its Registered Testing Pool

Sudden improvement in performance, consistent results at the international level, a top-20 or top-30 ranking in the world or credible “intelligence” information about an athlete indulging in doping practices often attract the attention of those who draw up the Registered Testing Pool at the International Associations of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

For more than a year now, the lone Indian in the IAAF Registered Testing Pool (RTP) happened to be javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra. His meteoric rise in world javelin rankings last year, culminating in the world junior record of 86.48m to win the World junior title in Bydgoszcz, Poland, perforce prompted the IAAF to place him in the RTP along with the rest of the top javelin throwers in September 2016.

Now, probably looking at the Commonwealth Games in April next year, and the improved performances shown by these athletes through the past year or two, the IAAF has brought in five Indian athletes into its RTP, at the same time leaving out Neeraj Chopra, rather inexplicably.

The IAAF five

The five in the Nov 15 RTP are: 400m runner Muhammed Yahya Anas, shot putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor, javelin thrower Devender Singh Kang, long jumper Nayana James and shot putter Manpreet Kaur.

Of these five, Kang is facing a doping charge for marijuana, a recreational drug that may attract a milder sanction than most other prohibited substances. Manpreet has been charged with a combination of steroid and stimulant offence that could get her a maximum of four-year suspension. She is presently under provisional suspension.

Kang is not serving any provisional suspension since the substance comes under the ‘specified’ category. Both cases are scheduled to be taken up by the newly-reconstituted disciplinary panels.

The IAAF invariably includes suspended athletes in its RTP. The IAAF also happens to be one of the few international federations that has retained the ‘re-instatement’ testing clause in its rules after that provision was removed from the WADA Code.  A minimum of three re-instatement tests are still prescribed. And these tests would be done at the athlete’s costs.
Athletes in the registered testing pool are required to provide their "whereabouts" to the anti-doping organization concerned. They are also required to indicate a one-hour slot every day of the year for testers to be able to collect samples at a pre-designated place. 'Whereabouts' information can be filed on a quarterly basis. Three 'whereabouts' failures or filing failures can attract a sanction of two years.

Anas, Toor, Kang and James are first-time entrants into the IAAF RTP.  They seemed to have been excluded from the domestic RTP of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) when they hit big-time but now have been included in it.

NADA sprang a pleasant surprise the other day by announcing an RTP list for six sports including athletics. In an impressive list of 178 sportspersons, there are 64 track and field athletes in the NADA RTP.

We do not know at this point whether NADA was aware of the IAAF RTP list and the Indians in it when it drew up the domestic RTP that contains all the five Indians listed in the IAAF pool. To duplicate the effort is likely to be a waste of resources though NADA can and should try to co-ordinate with the IAAF in order to space out the frequency of testing to have the optimum impact as far as these five athletes are concerned.

Racewalkers missing

Missing in the NADA RTP are TOPs beneficiaries, walkers K. T. Irfan, Ganapathy Krishnan and Manish Rawat plus several of the 4x400m relay runners who are likely to be included in TOPs (if not already in it), including the No. 3 woman quarter-miler this season, M. R. Poovamma. Athletes in the TOPs list, in all disciplines, are expected to be brought under the NADA radar through its testing pool.

Manpreet Kaur was in the IAAF RTP in October-December 2010 but went out quickly. Now, she is back. It was learnt she was tested recently by some agency, causing a flutter since people did not expect an athlete serving a provisional suspension to be tested. However, the IAAF does reserve the right to test an athlete while under suspension. Manpreet had tested positive in samples collected at Patiala and Bhubaneswar apart from China during an Asian Grand Prix leg this year. The infraction in China involved a steroid (metenolone) apart from stimulant dimethylbutylamine (DMBA), a substance she tested positive for in three separate tests.

From a 46.66s runner for the one-lap event in 2015, Muhammed Anas made a sensational foray into international athletics in the Olympic year with two national records for 400m on successive days in a meet in Bydgoszcz, Poland (45.44s and 45.40s) but went out in Rio in the first round with a 45.95s effort.

This year he cracked the national record again (45.32s) in New Delhi, but went out once again in the opening round in the World Championships in London with 45.98s. His best since clocking the national record this year has been the 45.61s in the Services championships in Bengaluru in August.

Twenty-three-year-old shot putter Tejinder Toor’s rise through the last two seasons has also been equally spectacular as that of Anas. Having hit big-time with a 19.24m for fifth place in the World University Games in Gwangju, Korea, in 2015 (where the now provisionally-suspended Inderjeet Singh won the gold), Toor improved his PB to 19.93m in New Delhi last year. Toor has two marks over 20 metres this year, an achievement that surely attracted world attention though he could not qualify for the World championships. He won the silver at the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar.

Staggering feats

Kang’s feats this year were also staggering. From a best of 80.21m last year he stretched his PB to 84.57m, claimed the bronze in the Asians and made the finals in the World championships in London, a feat that the better-rated Neeraj Chopra could not achieve. The top six marks of Kang’s career have come this year, a year in which, according to his own admission, he had been battling injuries.

Kang has had an up and down career so far.  He did 76.60 in Chennai in June 2014, got selected for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games but failed to go through the qualifying round with a sub-par 70.56m. He set a PB of 78.57 in the Fed Cup at Patiala a little over a fortnight after Glasgow but slumped to 72.21 in the National in New Delhi.

This season Kang has shown consistency. His marijuana offence could be disturbing for someone who is pushing 29 and admits that he may not have too many years left in his career. Under former world record holder Uwe Hohn of Germany, Kang was expecting to scale greater heights when the IAAF picked him for its RTP.

Manpreet Kaur has had the experience of being in the IAAF RTP and could be expected to handle things smoothly if she comes back into competition from her multiple anti-doping rule violations. The shot putter jumped from a PB of 16.39m to 17.96m at the Kolkata National in 2015, almost maintained that form through 2016 with a best of 17.94m and hit world headlines with an 18.86m in Jinhua, China, in the Asian Grand Prix meet in April this year.

That is where she tested positive for metenolone and DMBA. She tested positive for DMBA also at the Fed Cup at Patiala and the Asian Championships at Bhubaneswar.

Incredible progression

Nayana James (pic above) jumped from being a 5.76m jumper last year to a 6.55m jumper this season, a stunning improvement that had pundits raising their eyebrows. As a junior she had done 5.94m to take the National Youth title in 2012 but after that nothing much had been heard about her till she crossed six metres to win the Inter-University title at Coimbatore in January this year.

Then came the 6.55 at Patiala. That pushed her into the No. 1 slot in India for the season and fourth in the Asian lists. She did 6.42m for bronze in the Asian championships.

Will James maintain her 6.40-plus performance through the crucial 2018 season? That is the question uppermost in the minds of the athletics experts and followers. If we compare India’s best long jumper ever, Anju Bobby George, with James in terms of progression alone we will find that Anju’s best in a glittering career was 26 cm at the age of 21 between 1998 and 1999 (from 6.11 to 6.37). James, 22, has added 79cm to her 2016 best or (if we take her previous best of 5.94m in 2012), 61cm in a five-year span. Incredible improvement that was bound to attract the IAAF anti-doping department.

NADA had more than 40 athletes in its RTP in 2015 and possibly in subsequent months till now. It is doubtful that NADA carried out around three-to-four out-of-competition tests in 2016 on each of the 40-plus athletes it had on its RTP as is expected of an anti-doping organization when an athlete is included in its RTP. It is to be hoped the IAAF would retain the five Indians presently in its list till the Asian Games next year. And perhaps add a few more to that list!

Despite the ever-increasing number of dopers in Indian athletics, the IAAF has not been turning much of its attention towards our athletes in terms of including them in its registered pool. The logic, of course, would be the Indians are yet to touch world-class. Only Kang made the final of the last World Championships and steeplechaser Lalita Babar was the lone Indian finalist in the Rio Olympics.

The largest batch of Indian athletes in the IAAF RTP was 41 in 2006 when 40-odd Indian athletes left their training base at Potchefstroom, South Africa, in a hurry as the South African NADO, working on behalf of either WADA or the IAAF, went looking for them.

Then, following the outstanding success of Indian athletes in the 2010 Commonwealth Games, followed by the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, the IAAF roped in seven Indians but dropped them from the list in about a year’s time. The 2011 ‘catch’ of six woman quarter-milers was triggered by the IAAF tests on Mandeep Kaur and Jauna Murmu. Four others, Priyanka Panwar_now under eight-year suspension_Sini Jose, Tiana Mary Thomas and A. C. Ashwini were also caught in that campaign, carried forward by NADA.

NADA will need to pursue its out-of-competition testing based on domestic RTP more diligently in the coming months to protect India’s image on the international stage as well as to provide the ‘clean athletes’ a level-playing field. As mentioned in previous write-ups, timing is important. There will be little point in testing athletes just a couple of weeks before a qualifying competition or major championships. Quality testing should be the need of the hour, not testing for the sake of beefing up numbers.