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)