 |
| NADA has targeted hockey this season. Photo_Courtesy G. Rajaraman. |
Is hockey a ‘high-risk’ sport in anti-doping parlance?
“Hockey is a
very high-risk sport” in an anti-doping perspective! It takes a while before
one can even attempt to understand this statement.
Hockey and
doping?
One has
followed anti-doping closely for about two decades but has never come across the
game being rated as a top “doping sport”.
Read through
this revealing report by Mihir Vasavda in the Indian Express and you
start thinking you have been unfair in categorizing sport like athletics,
weightlifting, cycling, swimming, wrestling and boxing etc as “high risk” or
“most vulnerable” sports from a doping perspective. Hockey has to figure
somewhere in between. At least NADA’s yardstick demands such a grouping.
The Express
report quoted the NADA Director-General, Navin Agarwal, to say that as per revised risk
assessment parameters, “based on WADA guidelines,” hockey was a “very high-risk
sport”.
“Apart
from the physiological impact of doping, points like probability of winning
medals and popularity of game in the country are also considered. Hockey ranks
very high in both, so the number of tests that were to be conducted was pretty
high,” Agarwal was quoted as saying.
According to
the figures given out by NADA in response to an RTI application by Mihir
Vasavda/Indian Express, NADA carried out 92 out-of-competition tests in hockey
compared to 90 in athletics, 70 in wrestling, 64 in cycling, 62 in
weightlifting and 61 in boxing for the period January-July 2018.
It is
difficult to believe that NADA’s out-of-competition criteria has been based on
WADA guidelines as claimed by its DG. Even if we accept they were indeed based
on WADA guidelines, how could WADA arrive at a conclusion that NADA needed to
concentrate more on a team sport like hockey rather than on individual sports
and perennial toppers in doping like athletics, weightlifting, cycling,
wrestling, boxing etc?
If we take
the anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) compiled by WADA, from 2014 to 2016 in
Olympic sports, we can find that hockey figures low down in the list. For 2014,
hockey is at joint 18th place with equestrian sport with four ADRVs, for 2015
it is joint 22nd with golf with four ADRVs and for 2016 it is joint 22nd with
four other sports (modern pentathlon, badminton, table tennis and equestrian
sport) with four ADRVs. (The 2017 figures are yet to be out but WADA’s testing
figures show hockey has eight positive tests including one in indoor hockey
from 1476 samples)
The ADRV toppers
in these years (Olympic sports): 2014: Athletics 248, Cycling 168,
weightlifting 143, football 69, wrestling 56, boxing 49, rugby 40, aquatics 32,
basketball 27. 2015: Athletics 240, weightlifting 239, cycling 200, football
108, rugby 80, boxing 66, wrestling 57, basketball 39, rowing 27, aquatics 26.
2016: Athletics 205, cycling 165, weightlifting 116, football 79, wrestling 64,
rugby 56, aquatics 35, boxing 35, canoeing and kayaking 29, basketball 27.
(The ADRVs
are cases confirmed as violations. All adverse analytical findings (AAFs) need
not end up in ADRVs nor can the figures
given out be treated as final since cases may be pending).
In a list of
839 cases available on the NADA website as of 29 Oct 2018, as disposed of by
the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel, hockey figures at the 15th slot with six
cases, two of them for marijuana and one for a stimulant. In 2018, the last
case was that of goalkeeper Akash Chikte who has been banned for two years for
a steroid violation. There was one other case in 2018, also of a steroid
violation, that ended in a four-year sanction.
This is not
in defence of hockey as a “clean sport” nor an argument against either NADA’s
policy or WADA’s guidelines, but an attempt at figuring out what prompts
authorities to categorize a sport as “most vulnerable” from a doping angle, or
classify certain sports as “high-risk sport”, “priority sport” etc.
If
“probability of winning medals” is taken as a criterion for increased number of
testing, then athletics should have figured high in the Asian Games context.
Not only did it offer the highest number of medals (theoretically, 89 medals in
all if we take into consideration two athletes in each event are permitted to
be entered under the rules in 22 men and 21 women’s events plus a team each in
four relays and one mixed relay), but its record also showed that it topped the
all-time medals tally for India with 253. Wrestling comes next with 59.
Hockey, on
the other hand, offered only a medal each in men and women’s sections for a
country. India managed only a silver (women) and bronze (men) in the recent
edition. India has won 21 hockey medals in all in the Asian Games. One should
not be forgetting kabaddi also in the Asian Games context despite the reverses
India had in the last edition.
Similarly,
weightlifting has brought India plenty of medals in the Commonwealth Games, just
as wrestling and shooting have also done.
It is learnt,
hockey figured only in the 12th place in the ‘rankings’ based on WADA
parameters and yet found itself on top of the list when it came to testing by NADA
during 2018. How this happened is a mystery.
As highlighted
in the Express report, weightlifter Satish Sivalingam who won the gold in the
Commonwealth Games in April was not tested by NADA before that. He was tested only in July. More
interestingly, NADA did zero test in March in the run-up to CWG and just two
tests out-of-competition in July, prior to the Asian Games in weightlifting.
No comments:
Post a Comment