NADA's out-of-competition testing falls short again

Who should India’s National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) be testing the most during the course of a year?

The obvious answer would be those in the registered testing pool (RTP).  

According to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) definition the RTP is the pool of “highest priority” athletes who are subject to “focused in-competition and out-of-competition testing”.

The RTP is aimed at ensuring that anti-doping agencies have the chance to test top athletes unannounced at a designated place preferred by the athlete. A one-hour slot has to be provided to the testers for every day of the year by an athlete where he/she would be available for testing. Failure to be at the venue or to file the “whereabouts” may attract a sanction depending on the circumstances.

Doping is not about consuming steroids and other substances just before competition and hoping that testers would not catch. It is more about a systematic consumption to ensure that one is not caught even if tested. If one is taking steroids one will need a “safe period” of a month or two to be away from testers. It depends on the substance the athlete is taking, the mode of ingestion and the dosage.

“But wouldn’t he be tested in the competition?” This is a question often heard in the context of doping suspicions concerning an athlete.

If the athlete is wise enough he would not be caught even if he is tested. That is the way his doping cycles would have been designed to avoid detection.

This is where RTP comes in. At least theoretically that is the idea. Catch the cheat when he or she is building for the competitions ahead, giving a safe period to avoid turning in a positive test.

WADA wants agencies to carry out more out-of-competition tests than in-competition. But that often does not happen. Rules require an anti-doping authority to test its RTP athletes at least three times a year. That also, it seems, is a tough task, it would seem, at least for NADA India.

In 2018, NADA failed to test out of competition five of the six individual track and field gold medallists from India in the Asian Games before the games. It also failed to test ten of the 25 athletes in its RTP through the course of the year.

The record was better in 2019, but only marginally. This was not a multi-discipline games year. For athletics, the big meeting was the World Championships in Doha in September-October.  The NADA had enlarged its RTP from 25 in 2018 to 44 athletes by around mid-2019 (exact dates are not known since NADA does not indicate a date on the changes in its RTP on its website).

As per figures made available by NADA, in athletics it did not test at least eight of its RTP members up to November 11, 2019. Another 11 RTP athletes were subjected to just one out-of-competition test with a urine sample. Seven others were tested twice out of competition.

Only ten RTP athletes were put through the stipulated three out-of-competition tests based on urine samples.

The 10 athletes in the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme (Neeraj Chopra, Tajinder Toor, Seema Punia, Arpinder Singh, Muhammed Anas, Hima Das, A. Dharun, Jinson Johnson, M. Sreeshankar and Avinash Sable) were subjected to a combined total of 15 out-of-competition tests in 2019 (up to Nov 11). Seema and Arpinder were not tested at all out of competition in this period.

One would have expected NADA to concentrate more on its RTP athletes in athletics for out-of-competition testing in 2019 following revelations about inadequacies the previous year. That did not happen.

The test distribution plan (TDP) should have been so devised as to have a sensible mix of in-competition and out-of-competition testing. That would have meant spacing out three out-of-competition tests for RTP athletes in such a way that they would be well away from the in-competition period unless NADA was testing for erythropoietin (EPO) or growth hormone or similar substances.

Though the number of RTP-based out-of-competition tests among top athletes increased in 2019 compared to 2018, NADA’s choice of periods for such testing defied logic in many cases.

Those in the RTP who were tested out of competition from one to five days prior to a competition in 2019 included Arokia Rajiv and Muhammed Anas (400m);  Jinson Johnson (800m/1500m); Hima Das and M. R. Poovamma (400m);  Shivpal Singh and Annu Rani (javelin) and Tajinder Pal Singh Toor (shot put). All these athletes were also tested ‘in-competition’, making it all the more debatable.

If out-of-competition tests just before a competition happened to be the only ones under the ‘whereabouts’ programme, then the purpose was all but defeated. 

Only ‘non-specified’ substances that include steroids, metabolic modulators and certain stimulants are prohibited out-of-competition. Only ‘non-specified’ substances are tested for out-of-competition samples. In-competition testing will be for the entire list of prohibited substances though not all samples are subjected to certain tests, EPO for example.

It is rare that an athlete would come into a competition with steroids within his/her system till a day or five days prior to a competition. Those who do test positive for steroids in ‘in-competition’ testing might have possibly made a mistake in their intake of drugs so as to be caught while competing or else the laboratory is so advanced that it can detect the minutest quantities of metabolites over a longer period of time.

Since all substances are tested for in ‘in-competition’ testing, it becomes almost meaningless to test out of competition, a day or a few days before, such athletes who are likely to be tested in-competition.  The exception can come in the case of targeted testing for EPO and related substances since the window for detection of such substances is very limited, often a few days. Generally, endurance athletes, in any sport are targeted for EPO.

In 2018, NADA managed to test some athletes training abroad, though all tests were bunched together closer to the Asian Games, making it almost a formality being gone through. Yet, in terms of deterrence, it was a good effort away from our shores even if these tests might have been done by other agencies on behalf of NADA. In 2019, though, there was to be no testing of track and field athletes abroad.  Was there a cash crunch?

Contrary to what was being given out by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had come 11 times to test Indian athletes in Europe in 2018, it is now confirmed that WADA went only once. It collected six Indian samples in that single ‘mission’ in 2018 on Indians training in Europe. In all, WADA did 39 out-of-competition tests in athletics around the world in 2018.

The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of the IAAF (now World Athletics) did collect a substantial number of urine and blood samples from the Indians in 2018 including those out-of-competition samples from Doha before the Asian championships. Exact numbers of visits in Europe are, however, not available, though AIU confirmed that 88 urine samples were collected from the Indians in out-of-competition testing outside India in 2018. There were 25 Indian athletes initially at Spala, Poland.  Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra was the lone Indian athlete in AIU’s RTP through 2019.

NADA’s in-competition and out-of-competition testing in athletics has rarely taken the logical route. It often misses the first couple of days of a national championship or else may collect 20 or 30 samples from 40-odd events. With the National Dope-Testing Laboratory (NDTL) under suspension by WADA, there is an obvious resource crunch that NADA faces in getting tests done in foreign labs. This should not result in its attempts to test Olympics-bound athletes this season.

To get some idea about how lop-sided testing had been in 2019 in certain cases in athletics, we have to look at the nine in-competition tests that the  World University Games sprint champion Dutee Chand went through last season at home while noting that amazingly she did not undergo a single out-of-competition test by NADA!

Someone like Gajanand Mistry who figures below 15 in Indian lists for 400m in 2019 was tested three times out of competition while some of the better-rated quarter millers were not even tested twice.

Of course, it is NADA’s prerogative to choose athletes for testing as per RTP, performance, intelligence reports etc. Among the other prominent athletes tested out of competition were: Jisna Mathew and Saritaben  Gayakwad (400m) two each, V. K. Vismaya (400m) one, K. S. Jeevan and Noah Nirmal Tom (400m) one each, Jithu Baby and Alex Antony (400m) three each and Vipin Kasana (javelin) one.

Seema Punia, multiple international medal winner in discus, who is a TOPs beneficiary and RTP athlete, has undergone  just one test in two years! Keeping her in the RTP and at the same time being unable to do any test at all since she is probably abroad most of the time, is illogical.

NADA has to shed its testing philosophy. Target-testing should not mean testing an athlete out of competition a day before his event at a National meet. “We have done enough tests in athletics” should also not mean NADA can skip the next National championships which may be the final selection trial for a major global meet. More tests at university level and Khelo India and Schools Games would go a long way in curbing the doping menace among young athletes.

 (This first appeared in the Sportstar dated March 24, 2020)

Rest in peace Saini Saab

Photo_G. Rajaraman

In the death of Joginder Singh Saini, Indian athletics has lost its acknowledged Guru and a father figure. The 92-year-old coach passed away at Patiala on Sunday, March 1.

A man with an abiding love for athletics, Saini saab, as he was popularly known, showed his willingness to contribute to the sport well into his 80s and even in his 90s. Whether as a coach, NIS chief coach, the senior National chief coach or the Junior National Coach or later as an advisor to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), he showed a commitment that many a younger coach or administrator might have found hard to match.

A National meet without him being around was unimaginable. Old age never dampened his enthusiasm. He travelled across the country to be at the spot where athletics action was. Whether it was Delhi or Ranchi or Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam or Bangalore or Chennai, he made it a point to be there to witness athletes perform and to lend a helping hand to the federation and the organizers.

Those days

He would often compare performances in such meets with those of the Indian stalwarts of the 1960s through the1980s and 1990s. Milkha Singh, Makhan Singh and Gurbachan Singh Randhawa, Sriram Singh and Edward Sequeira and Hari Chand and Shivnath Singh often figured in such conversations. So, too, T. C. Yohannan and Suresh Babu and  P. T. Usha and Shiny Wilson.

“Remember, Eddie (Sequeira) did 3:43.7 (1500m) in 1966. No one could better that for nearly 30 years,” he would remind one often.  (Bahadur Prasad bettered that mark in Madras in 1995 with 3:38.00 and it was later bettered by Jinson Johnson at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 with 3:37.86. In 2019, Johnson improved it further to 3:35.24).

He was always full of admiration for Hari Chand and Sriram, too. He would often recall their feats in the Montreal Olympics whenever one brought up the topic of middle distance and distance running, his favourite area in athletics. (Hari Chand’s 10,000m record of 28:48.72 stood as National record for 32 years before being bettered to 28:02.89 by Surender Singh at Vigo, Spain, in 2008. Sriram’s 800m record of 1:45.77 at Montreal lasted for 42 years before it was bettered by Jinson Johnson with 1:45.65 at Guwahati).

Mr Saini romanticized athletics and athletes of an era when facilities were rudimentary, incentives meagre, information about the sport scanty and recognition hard to come by. He was also fully familiar with the current Indian athletics standards and the often-fluctuating form of the leading contenders.

The one great quality he had as a coach or chief coach was his ability to communicate, with athletes and with other coaches.  Almost everyone acknowledged this ability of his, none more than the former junior national coach, the late Suresh Babu.

“He is an excellent communicator, not many have that quality to drive home a point while addressing a group of athletes,” Suresh once told me. Sadly, Suresh’s life was cut short at 58 and what many of us looked forward to in having the former Asian Games long jump champion as the chief national coach of the senior Indian side did not materialize.

It was Saini saab who brought Suresh back from a period of inactivity on the coaching front. He was very keen that the transition from junior coach to senior would be smooth and at the earliest for the outstanding athlete of the 1970s. Suresh’s untimely death in 2011 when he was acting as the chef de mission of the Kerala contingent in the National Games, brought an end to such plans. Saini grieved along with the rest of us in the death of a dedicated, knowledgeable and capable coach.

Amidst the “bashing” that Indian coaches received from the top administrators of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) in recent years, Saini backed them. He was proud of many stalwarts of the past and at the same time always remembered the contribution of the Indian coaches, too.

“I told our coaches, speak up now. If you don’t you may never be able to. When they belittle your efforts, it reflects on the whole lot of us, it was humiliating for me since most of them had graduated under me or had worked with me,” he said after a meeting that analyzed the 2018 Asian Games performance.
(Five of the six individual gold-medal-winning Indian athletes in 2018 had trained under Indian coaches).

Respect for other coaches

He had high regard and respect for coaches of his era, late Ilyas Babar (Sriram’s coach), Ken O. Bosen (Throws expert at NIS). He would often also praise the contributions of O. M. Nambiar (P. T. Usha’s coach) and the late A. K. Kutty (M. D. Valsamma’s coach).

“Nambiar and Kutty were good assets for Indian athletics”, he said once.

He would seek information about coaches and athletes, their welfare. He kept in touch with C. M. Muthiah’s family till the latter breathed his last in Bangalore last December.

It was Mr. Saini who advised Gurbachan Singh Randhawa to give decathlon a try, Randhawa, who was to place fifth in the 110m hurdles in Tokyo Olympics 1964, beat Muthiah in the decathlon in 1960 National in Delhi. Randhawa went on to win the Asian Games gold in decathlon in Jakarta in 1962.

“He was sharp, he remembered everything from the past. He had this capacity to get across a point to people”, said Randhawa as we talked about Saini saab the other day.

One episode stands out for me. It was Asian Games year 2018. One was writing about India’s athletics prospects. Naturally, a chat with Saini saab was a must. As I started recalling medals from the past games, he reminded me about the 1978 Games in Bangkok where Indian athletes took eight gold medals, the country’s best to date.

“Let me recall our medal winners”, he said. I had the list, but wanted to listen to him. He reeled off not only all the names of the gold winners but also that of the silver (7) and bronze (3) medal winners. He was the head coach with the team. “We had just two coaches including myself”.

“Such memory sir?” one posed. “Of course I do remember all of them”, he said.

Saini saab was concerned about the doping menace among Indian athletes. As the junior national coach he had once in the 90s dumped more than a dozen athletes from an Indian team for doping offence when it was scheduled to compete in the Asian junior championships.

Much later, he realized doping had come to stay in Indian athletics. Just like many of the keen followers of the sport at home, he put much of the blame on foreign coaches though he did accept that some of the Indian coaches, too, had gained “specialization” under them.

Despite having done a course in Berlin in the 1960s and gained from it, he was not a fan of “training abroad” or foreign coaches.  He was concerned about the stagnation levels, especially among the 400 runners despite training in Europe in 2016 and 2019.

Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh honours J. S. Saini at a function in November 2019

He was conferred with the Dronacharya award in 1997. He was honoured, along with several other Punjab sports personalities by the Punjab Government last November.

“I have received more honours than I deserve”, he said a day after the he was honoured by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh at Kapurthala. He made light of the seven-hour up and down road travel needed for the awards ceremony.

But then that was nothing compared to the regular 12-hour up and down road travel he undertook rom Patiala fto attend selection committee and other meetings of the AFI in Delhi for years, even after turning 90. He didn’t attend the last one in February, though.

In November, 2018, he was advised to have a pacemaker. He managed quite well after that, cheerful and ready to engage one in athletics talk. Alas, it was not his heart that failed him eventually. A bull attacked him near his residence when he had stepped out for a walk. He suffered serious injuries, was hospitalized and passed away a few days later.

I have lost a friend and guide, Indian athletics its Bhishma Pitamah.  Rest in peace Sir.

(Updated March 13, 2020).