Bring 'disappearing' athletes and camp boycotters into Registered Testing Pool

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Nirmala Sheoran winning the Fed Cup 400m at Patiala on 4 June, 2017 in 51.28s, the third best time ever by an Indian.



Are non-campers doping?
Athletes missing national camps is nothing new. Many athletes skipped the camps in 2015 and 2016 without being banned from future camps. 
There is a general feeling in athletics circles, especially within the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) that athletes who train away from national camps are engaged in doping since dope-testers hardly ever reach them. Action against the ‘errant’ athletes is quite often proposed but rarely taken. 

There is another section within the athletics fraternity which believes that camps provide a “protected environment” for doping, and athletes, especially the “favourites”, do manage to dope and get tipped off well in time to avoid dope-testers from the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA).

The fact that drugs were impounded and destroyed by the authorities at camps through the years, the fact that all the six woman quarter-milers caught in the net in 2011 were campers, the fact that a ‘doping chart’ prepared possibly by a foreign expert was in circulation in 2004 in the camp, and the fact that drugs are easily available near the NIS, Patiala, all point towards the prevalence of doping in the camps. 

When international testers came looking for Indian athletes

Most of us remember the “disappearance” of leading athletes from the Patiala camp in 2006 when WADA/IAAF came looking for a batch of athletes. A disciplinary panel was set up by the AFI to look into the ‘disappearing act’ but eventually nothing came of it. Now, there seems to be an urgency to crack the whip; pardon the cliché. The AFI has said that it would not allow those invited and still skipping the camp to compete in the selection trials for international meets. The Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, and the Asian Games in Jakarta, are scheduled next year.

This is an extreme step that might not pass legal scrutiny, but we will come to that later. There is a need to highlight another point that has come up in this AFI decision to keep “reluctant campers” away from selection meets.

This report  dated 31 October says Nirmala Sheoran, the top 400m runner of the country, has been “untraceable” for the AFI. It says it appears the AFI decision to bar camp absentees from selection meets has probably arisen out of the Nirmala episode.

Stunning timings

Nirmala had trained on her own somewhere in Haryana in 2016 also when she qualified for the Rio Olympics 400m with a stunning 51.48s in the Inter-State meet at Hyderabad. She went out in the first round in Rio with a 53.03s. Nirmala competed only in the Inter-State and the Olympics in 2016.

She appeared at the Fed Cup at Patiala this year and once again destroyed the field with another sensational 51.28s, prompting fans to acclaim her performance. She qualified for the World Championships with that timing but before going to London she won the Asian title in Bhubaneswar with a modest 52.01s.

In London, Nirmala made the semifinals, with another 52.01s, a creditable feat considering the routine manner in which Indian athletes fail on the global stage. But in the semifinal she could manage only a 53.07s and went out. It was her poorest timing in 2017. Once again, the 22-year-old Haryana athlete competed only in limited meets, the Fed Cup and Asian championships at home and the World Championships.

The top brass in the AFI was not convinced, though, even before Rio. Now, there is further cynicism. Of athletes skipping National camps, this is what the AFI chief, Adille Sumariwalla, has stated in the above report: “They keep hiding here and there, telling us ‘we will come after 15 days, we will come now, we will come later’. When they think it is safe for them, they come.”

Understandable concern

Sumariwalla’s concern is understandable. Both in Rio and London, the Indian athletes fared poorly overall. The AFI keeps projecting medals, at least for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, in assessments given to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the Sports Ministry but things do not pan out to expectations eventually.

But why is the AFI searching for Nirmala? Why is the NADA not doing this? And why is NADA not marking ‘missed tests’ against her name if she is not found at the place where she was expected to be at a specified point of time during the course of a day? Does NADA have her in its Registered Testing Pool (RTP)? If not, how can NADA exclude a top athlete like Nirmala?

So, we come to the disturbing conclusion that Nirmala is probably not in the NADA’s Registered Testing Pool (RTP). There can be no other explanation for NADA seeking her ‘whereabout’ information from the AFI, as one surprisingly learnt the other day.

NADA’s responsibility is to send out testers to an athlete’s chosen place for ‘whereabouts’ testing at the specified time and if found missing, initiate steps to mark a ‘missed test’. Three such misses in a 12-month period would mean a possible anti-doping rule violation that can attract a two-year suspension.

If Nirmala has not been included in the NADA RTP it is a shocking development. She topped the national lists in 400m in 2016 and this year with timings that had not been matched for over a dozen years at home, 51.48s (No. 3 in Asia) and 51.28s (No. 2 in Asia). It is natural for any follower of Indian athletics and people aware of anti-doping systems to believe that she would be there in the RTP.

NADA can seek to send a notice to the athlete through the National Federation. Say, to inform the athlete that he/she has been included in the RTP or he/she had missed a test and needed to explain things further in order to avoid a ‘strike’ against his/her name. But NADA would be expected to send a communication directly to the athlete’s registered residential address (obtained from the federation), with a copy to the NSF, in all such instances. It should not be asking the federation, “where can we find” Nirmala. It should have got her address long back and by now should have either included her in the RTP or if she is already ‘in’, then send testers to collect samples.

All that NADA needs, as per rules, is a five-day gap after posting a communication to consider that the notice was “deemed” to have been delivered. The TOPs (Olympic Podium) list should have at least triggered the process if NADA had not included current leading athletes in its ‘whereabouts’ programme.

‘Whereabouts’ information filed by chosen athletes provide an anti-doping authority a window to test the athletes at a pre-designated location opted for by the athletes for testing during a one-hour slot every day through the year. Athletes are expected to file quarterly information and may make last-minute changes, if required, through mobile phones or e-mails etc.

Timing is crucial in testing

Timing is important in any out-of-competition testing. There is no point in testing when athletes have “washed” their systems clear of traces of drugs in time for competitions. (Some advantage is always retained even after washing it out. In certain cases it may be a huge advantage).

With the Commonwealth Games coming up in April next year, NADA can now hope to test Nirmala or any other athlete, on a ‘whereabouts’-based schedule (if not already registered) only next year since January 1 will mark the beginning of a new quarter while October 1 was the last one.

If NADA had not been reviewing its ‘whereabouts’ list in all sports on a regular basis, it has gone against the regulations of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), as available in the International Standards for Testing and Investigations. It is supposed to do it at least on a quarterly basis if not earlier and then add or delete names to/from the list depending on its criteria.

NADA’s initial ‘whereabouts’ list in athletics in May 2015, contained 41 names. Three of them (shot putter Inderjeet Singh, sprinter Dharambir Singh and 400m runner Priyanka Panwar) were charged with anti-doping rule violations last year. Dharambir and Panwar have since been suspended while Inderjeet’s case is going on.

On a rough estimate at least 20 of the rest of the athletes in that list should be out of the RTP by now, if they have not been so far, since they are no longer among the top athletes or else have stopped competing regularly. At the same time, a big batch of athletes including all those chosen for the TOP scheme who are already not in the RTP could be expected to be included in the line-up. You don’t spend lakhs of rupees for training athletes abroad or hiring foreign coaches, and provide Rs 50,000 per month pocket allowance without subjecting athletes to dope tests, do you?

Those among the 19 already in the NADA RTP of 2015 (presuming that the top athletes in that list would have been retained even if NADA had updated the original list several times over) are: K. T. Irfan (20km walk), O. P. Singh (shot put), Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh (3000m steeplechase) and Annu Rani (javelin). World junior champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is the only Indian athlete in the IAAF RTP at present and thus NADA may not need to include him in its RTP.

Sixteen more athletes are expected to be added to the TOPs list, among whom Arokia Rajiv, M. R. Poovamma and Anilda Thomas were in the 2015 RTP and could be expected to have been retained till now.

The ability or otherwise of NADA to test athletes training at various locations in the country, even if some of them are outside the camps, should not force the AFI to restrict a selection meet (in this case the Federation Cup and the Inter-State meet in 2018) to campers. It can, at best, argue that only the ‘campers’ and those training abroad with the permission of the AFI and SAI, may be selected to represent India, but not refuse entry to National meets. Even that would be questionable and could be challenged in courts.

Exclusion could be challenged

If the athletes training outside the camps manage to clock timings and distances that match the selection criteria and are still dropped, we may yet again have court cases like we had in 2016 when quarter-miler Anu Raghavan sought legal recourse for inclusion in the Olympic squad, and Asian 1500m winner P. U. Chithra approached Kerala High Court this year to gain her ‘legitimate right’ for inclusion in the team to World Championships. In both cases the pleas became infructuous since they were taken up rather late though the courts were inclined to rule in favour of the athletes.

Incidentally, Anu Raghavan and Anilda Thomas, along with the country’s top 400m man, Muhammed Anas, are training outside the camp in Kerala, and according to this report, are keen to pursue their own programme.

The AFI would be well advised to persuade NADA to include those athletes who are training outside camps in the RTP and advise the former to do at least two tests a month from now on up to the Commonwealth Games. If the process of RTP registration is delayed, NADA could be told to make surprise visits to known training centres of these athletes and carry out a test every fortnight or so. NADA needs to put in wholehearted efforts to achieve this. An attitude of “let’s not test them four or five times a year” will not help.

Quite often AFI officials claim that the athletes within the camps are tested every ten days or fortnight. That is what they imagine and that could be the most ideal situation to have. But in reality, the numbers are much smaller. As per WADA statistics, NADA did only 358 out-of-competition tests in athletics in 2016.

Let us assume around 100 athletes could be part of the camp every year. Let us also assume it could begin around December or January and the season could stretch up to October. Say two tests every month for ten months per athlete. That will work out to 2000 out-of-competition tests per year among campers in athletics alone. NADA did only 2699 tests, in and out of competition, in all sports put together in 2016!

BCCI and ICC should not get special status

There is an air of inevitability about the row that erupts between the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) at periodic intervals. Every time it hits the headlines, various theories are put forward by the organisations involved in the posturing to explain why NADA is keen to test cricketers and why the BCCI wants to “protect” them or its autonomy.

Invariably, an impression gains ground that cricket need not be a ‘low vulnerable’ sport in doping terms, and that Indian cricketers are running shy of being dope-tested. For good measure, the ‘security angle’ involved in the ‘whereabouts’-based dope-testing exercise is often bandied about as though the only way to come to know of the places of residence of top-level cricketers is through the anti-doping ‘whereabouts’ route and that domestic matches are held in such secure environs no one would be able to see or approach the players. By implication, NADA’s credibility to safeguard data related to athletes’ ‘whereabouts’ is doubted.

Privacy and security (and, at a later stage, the apprehensions about blood-testing) were talked about in relation to Indian cricketers and ‘whereabouts’ at various intervals during the past eight years when NADA tried in vain to take control of domestic cricket testing. None of this reasoning might have been founded on logic but once the argument was made, the Board officials easily latched onto it and the media was too happy to oblige.

Take for instance the latest argument of the “top leadership of the BCCI” regarding NADA’s much-publicised attempt to test leading cricketers:

“The top leadership of BCCI believes that trying to get a Virat Kohli or Mahendra Singh Dhoni sign the ‘whereabouts’ clause is one of the main reasons behind NADA wanting BCCI to come under its wing”, says an agency report that was attributed to an unnamed BCCI official.

Now, why should NADA be keen to get Kohli or Dhoni sign the ‘whereabouts’ clause when they are already in the ICC ‘whereabouts’ (National Players) Pool?

Anti-doping agencies are expected not to duplicate efforts while drawing up their pools or testing individual athletes. It stands to logic then that even if the NADA gets the right to test cricketers, Kohli and Dhoni may not be obliged to file ‘whereabouts’ information with NADA since they would have already filed the information (as per ICC requirements) to the ICC. Just for the fun of it, if NADA still wants them to file information, they may, however, have to oblige.

The ‘whereabouts’ information collected by one agency is available through ADAMS (Anti-Doping Administration and Management System) to other relevant agencies that have the authority test an athlete. The ICC having a different approach to ‘whereabouts’ compared to many other international federations and NADOs, it is true the Indian NADA might not get the information it could be seeking from ADAMS alone.

ICC National Player Pool

The top five ODI batsmen of a country, along the top five bowlers and the wicketkeper with the most number of ODI appearances constitute the National Player Pool (NPP) of the ICC. Needless to say, both Kohli and Dhoni have been part of that pool for long and continue to be in it.

It is not essential for an anti-doping authority to base its ‘whereabouts’ data on residential addresses or holiday locations. The International Standards for Testing and Investigations gives the option of seeking information based on ‘team activity’. What is expected is the address of a venue where an athlete could be located for one hour every day as per his/her filing on a quarterly basis. It could be a training ground from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m every day of the quarter or year or else it could be a hotel during match days.

The ICC does not seek residential addresses of its players in the NPP_the IRTP players have to provide the address_ except a player’s “nominated address” to be given to the National federation for the purpose of communications. The International Standards, however, require that addresses where athletes are living be given.

Team activity

Neither the ICC nor the NADA (as and when it gets to test cricketers) would be expected to gather information from individual players if such information could be obtained from a team and which could be used during ‘team activity’. The ICC ‘whereabouts’ testing is based on team sessions at training venues and stay at hotels during match days. The International Football Federation (FIFA) also have similar rules for its main registered pool.

It is not absolutely necessary for an anti-doping agency to have ‘whereabouts’ data to test players it is targeting. An athlete could be tested any time between 6 a.m and 11 p.m any day of the year at any location, even if the athlete is outside the ‘whereabouts’ list. WADA has the authority to test any athlete any time in any sport anywhere in the world subject to timings restrictions.

It was not until May, 2015 that the NADA got together a national registered pool in any sport in India. A beginning was made with athletics and weightlifting followed. You might then wonder what the fuss was all about during the 2009-2010 period when the BCCI refused to accept the ICC ‘whereabouts clause’, ostensibly trying to protect the privacy of its leading players, and also refused to come under the jurisdiction of the NADA.

Breach of ‘right to privacy’

It was made out that the then Attorney General had advised the BCCI that the ‘whereabouts’ clause could be in breach of the Constitution since the “right to privacy” guaranteed in the Constitution could be violated.

"We need to find a solution to the practical problem India is having, which is a constitutional issue of the country, which is why we decided to suspend the 'whereabouts' clause," ICC CEO Haroon Lorgat was quoted as saying by 'Cricinfo' after an Executive meeting of the world body, PTI reported on October 8, 2009.

Could there be a Constitutional issue only for the cricketers and not for other sportspersons in India? No one asked the question, it seems.

No one was also bothered about seeking a legal opinion whether the Government of India was breaching the Constitutional rights of the athletes since it happened to be a signatory to the UNESCO Convention against Doping in Sports, which in turn endorsed the WADA Code that had the ‘whereabouts’ provision. Moreover, the Government by then had also set up the NADA which followed the ‘whereabouts’ provisions.

The US, UK, Germany, France and Australia, to name just a handful of leading democracies in the world, have adopted the Code and have ‘whereabouts’ rules in place without their judiciary questioning them about privacy intrusion. The same applies to blood sampling, once thought to be extremely contentious and likely to run into hurdles especially in Europe but now accepted the world over as part of a procedure that anti-doping authorities need to follow.

Blood testing

Indian cricketers, according to reports, are still wary of blood being drawn for testing. In short, Indian cricketers have been painted as a set of sportspersons who are special. Whether they themselves have expressed fears over NADA’s authority, the ‘whereabouts’ clause and blood sampling or whether this has been a BCCI-spun narrative is difficult to tell.

If WADA can protect personal data (notwithstanding hacking) and have rules in place to regulate such data, if NADA could handle dope tests and ‘whereabouts’ information of other sportspersons with the confidentiality expected of it, cricketers should not feel scared. After all, NADA is a signatory to the Code while the BCCI is not.

Attempt to gain special status

The ICC has unfortunately attempted to acquire for itself a special position among the Code signatories, and to provide a more special status to the BCCI that has refused to acknowledge the authority of the National Anti-Doping Organisation.  Declared ‘non-compliant’ to the Code in 2008 by the WADA, the ICC had managed to have its own set of ‘whereabouts’ rules that were later okayed by WADA. But now the ICC seems to have violated the Code again by amending its rules, probably in 2016.

Even as it has retained the contentious amendment to the rule that legitimizes the refusal of the BCCI to recognize NADA’s jurisdiction, the ICC has maintained that it was satisfied with the BCCI anti-doping policy that had adopted the ICC template. The ICC has rarely gone against the BCCI in matters of anti-doping especially in recent years.

But has the BCCI really adopted the ICC template for National Federations? A firm ‘No’ is the answer.  There are 58 references in that template for National Anti-Doping Organizations (NADOs); none in the BCCI anti-doping rules!
There is a clear assertion of the status of the NADO in the ICC template but none has been adopted by the BCCI. Despite this, the ICC has approved and acknowledged the BCCI's refusal to accept the rules and still contended that the latter follows the template.
This is what rule 5.1.1 of the ICC template says:

“Testing shall only be undertaken for anti-doping purposes, i.e. to obtain analytical evidence as to the Cricketer’s compliance (or non-compliance) with the Rules’ strict prohibition on the presence/Use of a Prohibited Substance or Prohibited Method. The National Cricket Federation shall be responsible for assisting the NADO to draw up and implement a test distribution plan for cricket played under its jurisdiction in accordance with Article 4 of the International Standard for Testing and Investigations. Where there is no NADO, or the NADO does not include sufficient Testing for cricket played under its jurisdiction in its test distribution plan, the National Cricket Federation shall be responsible for implementing such Testing. The National Cricket Federation will engage one or more third parties to conduct such Testing on its behalf. All such Testing shall be conducted in substantial conformity with the International Standard for Testing and Investigations and the Cricket Testing Protocols.”

One is not aware of any other International Federation not recognizing the authority of a NADO either directly or allowing one of its member units to defy the National body and providing a provision about it in its own rules. International federations in athletics, football and swimming, among dozens of others, have rules that provide for domestic testing and ‘results management’ responsibilities to be delegated by the National federations to the NADOs.

Quite a few of the International federations, however, stop short of entrusting the sole authority to test at the national level to NADOs where they are in existence.

National federations not Code signatories

National federations are not counted among the anti-doping authorities in the Code which has the international federations, major event organisers, regional bodies and NADOs as its signatories. A National federation may yet conduct tests at the domestic level under the authority and rules of an international federation, a clause not mentioned in the Code but available in the International Standards for Testing and Investigations (2017).

This does not give a national federation the right to defy a NADO nor does it provide it a chance to take over various responsibilities of the latter. 

NADA has allowed this to drag on for too long. It should have sorted this out right at the beginning, back in 2009. Now the issue has got clouded and there is only focus on ‘whereabouts’ testing and the need of the Indian cricketers to provide NADA with such information in case the latter becomes a testing authority for cricket. Of course, the ever-popular “privacy” angle is often mentioned in reports.

For an anti-doping body that is yet to have all Olympic sports under its ‘whereabouts’ window, cricketers should not be prime targets under NADA’s ‘whereabouts’ programme. The rules require ADOs to collect whereabouts information only if they plan to test an athlete out of competition three or four times a year.

In the WADA testing figures for 2016, cricket figures among the low rankers with only three adverse analytical findings, the same as golf, one more than darts and one less than archery. The Indian NADA should not try to make it out as though cricket is dope-driven or the BCCI does not bother about transparency, citing the example of one positive test by BCCI last year about which there is no further information. There is no information about three other cases from 2013.

Top-ranked cricketers are liable to be included in blood sampling though ICC has not done any blood tests so far. In the past two years only the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) has done all the blood tests on cricketers (33) except two by Jamaica.  In the four previous years (2012-2015) cricket did not have a blood sampling at all as per WADA figures. Cricket is not considered an endurance sport and thus the lack of urgency to draw blood from players despite the repeated slant given in news reports that “Indian players will be subjected to blood tests”.

Time for WADA to intervene

Unless WADA intervenes and directs the ICC to rectify the situation vis a vis its Indian unit, the stalemate would continue. WADA has reportedly written to the ICC but the latter has denied it. Any concession to the ICC by WADA would be unjustified while the Government needs to tackle the BCCI through the legal route if required. 

NADA’s attempts to go ahead and start testing cricketers, on the strength of a communication from WADA and a directive from the ministry, may not succeed since it does not have the authority to test cricketers. That authority must be given by the BCCI which should then incorporate the NADA rules into its own constitution or governing document for NADA to begin testing cricketers.

NADA might have done tests in other sports without this ‘delegated authority’ all these years and might continue to do so but the BCCI is not going to allow this “assumed right” go unchallenged, if it is bent upon a confrontationist path.

If a cricketer, on the advice of the BCCI, refuses to submit himself to sample collection, or the BCCI refuses to impose a sanction on a player (if a positive test comes up and a panel orders a suspension), NADA might not be able to do much legally and within the framework of the Code.

Merely falling back on the plea that the NADA’s status and rules were published in the Gazette of India might prove inadequate in a legal battle if the beleaguered BCCI, burdened already with legal issues, decides to fight it out in the courts. The sooner the parties sit across the table the better it would be for sports and anti-doping in India.

 

(amended Nov 2, 2017)

An Open National that failed to attract NADA

Photo_courtesy G. Rajaraman.

“It was an open championship, I believe, and it does not have much relevance and significance.”

The statement hits you like a ton of bricks!

Trying to read that line on your smartphone as you wake up in the morning, you rub your eyes to make sure you got it right.

An Open National Athletics Championship is of not much relevance in an anti-doping perspective! That was the essence of the statement.

Yes, the unfortunate, ill-timed statement has come from the Director-General of the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA). No less.
Anti-doping will not be able to achieve its goals if men in charge come up with such ill-informed, damaging statements. The NADA chief who was abroad at that time, was quoted as saying that there might have been more important assignments for his team at the time of the National championships, a vague excuse that betrayed his own lack of understanding of his organisation's plans.

One had heard murmurs about very few samples having been collected at the National Inter-State championships at Guntur last July. That happened to be the final shot for athletes trying to qualify for the World Championships in London. It was foolish, one thought, to cut down on samples for such an important meet.

And now comes this: No testing at Open National and the NADA boss justifying it by claiming it was just an ‘open championship’ and was of little relevance. It is ‘open’ because institutional sides get a chance to field teams.  The States, too. But ‘open’ does not mean anyone can enter. It has to be an affiliated unit of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and there are minimum standards prescribed for an athlete to be eligible to enter.

Without the NADA knowing perhaps_and probably without the athletes also being aware of it_the Commonwealth Games qualification process had begun with the Open at Chennai.

The NADA, under Navin Agarwal since June, 2016, seemed to have done reasonably well in catching a few “big fish” in the Olympic year.

The slide

Then things started slipping a little. The Hindustan Times reported early 2017 that the National Sports Federations (NSFs) were getting worried because NADA had started cutting down on the number of tests in each of the Olympic sports discipline, possibly to work within its budget.

The new ‘mantra’, it was explained, was “risk assessment” and “targeted testing”. People in the field of sports always knew the most vulnerable sport in terms of doping propensity and those within such sports also knew who were the most likely candidates who were either already into juicing up or likely to taste the stuff.

The news about reduced number of samples for 2017, brought out a desired response from higher-ups. Fortunately, that is. Niti Aayog, worried about the continued status of India as the No. 3 doping country in the world (a position maintained from 2013 through to 2015), directed that NADA do at least 5500 tests this year.

NADA suddenly increased that number to target 7000 tests despite “budgetary constraints”. Mind you, it had cut down on tests at the national level and then this realization that “we have to do 7000”. Perhaps that is where the trouble started.

Such numbers can often cloud logical thinking and reasoning. “Let’s-beef-up-numbers” is never the answer to improved anti-doping measures. Which sport do you want to target with the hiked numbers and which competitions and who among them in particular? That should have been the topmost question and number one priority.

Worried federations

Instead NADA seemed to have hit upon a “great idea” of carrying out doping control at State athletics championships and weightlifting championships and inter-college competitions even as the respective federation officials expressed their frustration at not being able to curb doping since their major competitions were being either ignored or given low priority.

The Hindustan Times quoted the officiating secretary of the IWLF, Sahdev Yadav to say that domestic testing had become a routine. He said the past year NADA had tested 180 samples spread across youth, junior and senior groups (Nationals). “This time (2016) anti-doping officials skipped youth and junior events but conducted eight tests in the senior event.” Yadav said.

Athletics was no different. Just five samples were collected from the Junior Nationals last year. And the AFI Secretary, C. K. Valson, was quoted by HT as saying that no dope tests were conducted at the National cross-country meet at Bhopal, also last year.

The competitions where testing has been conducted this year, as per NADA Newsletter, included the Services Best Physique Championships, the Chief Minister’s State-level athletics championships at Madurai, the Chief Minister’s State-level weightlifting championships at Thanjavur, the Delhi University Inter-College Powerlifting and Best Physique Championships and an Under-19 football tournament at Hyderabad and Vizag.

The Open National is the No. 1 athletics championships in the country. In its 57th year this time, the Open suffered because of large-scale absenteeism. Yet, there were quite some “incredible” performances. NADA could have been  very  effective there. People who attended the meet informed this writer that quite a few athletes seemed to have known in advance that there would be no testing and came "well prepared"! Surprising then that some of the best in the business chose to stay away. CWG qualification could have been simplified.

“My suggestion is that athletes who are getting TOPs support should be tested and cleared minimum four times a year (out of competition) for doping. Our system needs to be more vigilant and proactive to ensure rights of clean athletes are protected,” Anju George, India’s lone World Championships medallist, is said to have written to the Sports Ministry, according to the Express report. Anju is one of the Government Observers in athletics, the other being P. T. Usha.

Anju’s concern is genuine. To add to her suggestion, one would be tempted to say “make it six to eight times of out-of-competition testing per registered pool athlete through the year.”

Deliberately targeted?

But NADA seems to consider testing an athlete about half a dozen times a year rather unwarranted! Too harsh perhaps?

A PTI report in February stated: “NADA said it has also come to its notice that some athletes were targeted deliberately by their federations.

“Instances were observed where NADA was unduly targeting some athletes and repeatedly testing them time and again, even more than 4 to 5 times a year, which now stands discontinued,” the body stated.

Targeted deliberately by their federations?

One always had this notion that NADA was the sole testing authority in India. Has it changed?

Targeting has to be done by NADA. Targeting is not a hitherto unknown tool that NADA stumbled upon in 2016. It is prescribed in the WADA Code; has been there since the Code came into being.

If NADA had not been able to do much target-testing, especially in athletics, it was only because it did not have the expertise to draw up a meaningful list for its registered testing pool, leave alone identify the top “suspects” among them for special target testing.

Even now, two years after NADA managed to compile a list of 41 athletes for its Registered Pool, it is doubtful whether the body has the most obvious cases in athletics in that RTP. (RTP is a list where an athlete has to provide his/her “whereabouts” on a quarterly basis to make himself/herself available for out-of-competition testing at a chosen location for one hour every day,)

Let’s presume, NADA has struck pay-dirt in its fight against doping by concentrating on out-of-competition target-testing.

Figures do not match

The statistics, however, do not match the NADA estimates and assessment. In 2015, when the new, revised Code came into being, NADA tested 894 ‘in-competition’ samples in athletics and came up with 19 adverse analytical findings (AAFs). Of the 513 out-of-competition samples, none came positive.

Firm figures are not available for 2016 which WADA should be releasing any time now. However, from the data that could be compiled, one arrived at a rough count of two sanctioned cases out of 15 disposed of so far in athletics in 2016 as being ‘out-of-competition’ ones. The rest were from ‘in-competition’ tests.

In 2017, out of 29 cases in all sports, either sanctioned or going through a hearing process, there are seven out-of-competition cases. And there are nine cases in all in athletics, all of them from ‘in-competition’ tests.

The idea of catching the dopers unawares through “surprise tests” is good and may work provided the “surprise” element is maintained in such ‘missions’.  Quite often the athletes get tipped off or else they just go "on leave" from the Patiala camp. Also of importance in this exercise would be the co-operation of coaches and camp authorities with the testing team, quite often missing, according to observers. 

One example in 2015 would suffice to drive home the point that ‘intelligence-based’ out-of-competition testing is very difficult to accomplish.  A dope control officer delegated by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) made two visits to the LNCPE grounds, Thiruvananthapuram, to “catch” two women 400m runners but on both occasions they slipped through under his very nose. There are any number of such instances that people narrate when it comes to NADA testing.

The Open National, Inter-State Championships and the Federation Cup should be ‘must’ in NADA’s Test Distribution Plan for athletics. There should be more than 100 samples collected at each of these championships; closer to 150 would be ideal.

The rest including Indian Grand Prix and any last-minute ‘trial meet’ etc could be tackled depending on what could be at stake from such meets. If a qualification is at stake, redouble the efforts. NADA should also not forget Junior National meets.

Last year NADA said that the NSFs were told to provide their calendars. NADA should not wait for an “invite” for doping control arrangements. The AFI Medical Committee Chairman, Dr Arun Mendiratta, stated this time that he had informed NADA about the Open National in July.

If a yearly calendar is prepared by NADA, even with tentative/available dates, it would be useful for it to focus on ‘in-competition’ testing where required. Testing at Rajasthan State weightlifting championships and Delhi University Best Physique competition is okay, provided you don’t forget your main menu. And that has to be the Senior National Championship in every major Olympic discipline, the most ‘vulnerable’ like athletics and weightlifting getting top priority.

Biological passport

The Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) that NADA plans to bring in by 2018 will also be a useful protocol to make life that much tougher for the prospective cheat. But that in itself is not going to nab them by the dozen. It will be a slow process, mainly to pinpoint abnormalities to be followed up with target testing.

NADA’s “catch” so far has been impressive. More than 852 positive cases reported and processed or being processed. That is not just because of NADA’s ability to relentlessly pursue the cheats but also because of the widespread practice of doping that goes on in the country.

The numbers would go up now since NADA has started testing again in powerlifting and bodybuilding, two disciplines that invariably turn in dopers by the dozen. Athletics had topped the Indian charts in 2014 (29 out of 95) and 2016  (23 out of 76) while being second in 2015 (24 out of 120) behind weightlifting (56). Churning out dope-'positive' numbers, as the Russians have been doing for years, may not eventually prove that the country is "clean" from a doping perspective. 

Olympic sports need more attention, athletics in particular. If those hunting for “talent” is fooled by dope-induced performances, as had been the case during the past few years, then funds would be drained through schemes like the TOPs and Khelo India with some “great potential” failing to blossom on the big stage.

Include every TOPs-funded athlete in the NADA RTP, test them six or eight or ten times a year if need be. Let the Government also make sure the recipients of Khelo India annual scholarship, especially in the disciplines where doping is common, are tested regularly so that the Olympic dream could be realised.

NADA has recently advertised for a legal officer and investigator. The Sports Ministry has sought an international expert as a consultant. Things should perk up if everyone concerned work together to provide a “level playing field” for the “clean athletes”.

The moment someone says, “we don’t want to harass an athlete with five or six tests a year” you have false-started. They normally put a DQ against your name!

Of qualification marks, internal standards and selection guidelines

P. U. Chithra  winning 1500m at the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar_Pic courtesy G. Rajaraman.

Obfuscation is the ‘in thing’ in Indian sports administration. For years, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has been laying down qualification criteria for selection of teams for major international competitions. And flouting them much of the time!

Now comes this news: “The AFI will introduce qualifying standards across track and field disciplines for next year’s Commonwealth Games and Asian Games.”

Public memory is short. It seems the media’s, too. Not just the media, but that of the coaches and officials also.

The AFI stated in a Press release in June, 2014 just when the athletes were getting ready to compete in the inter-State meet in Lucknow that served as the selection trials for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, that a set of qualifying marks was being announced for the selection of the Indian team.

Complicated process

The AFI went through a complicated process of compiling the third and fourth place results of the three previous Commonwealth Games and arrived at a particular mark which it fixed as the norm for the Glasgow Games.

For the Asian Games in Incheon it was explained that only "qualifying guidelines" were being issued and not 'qualifying standard'. It did not matter; the athletes knew what to clock and how far to jump in order to make the cut.

Since the times one could remember, the AFI had some selection standards for picking Indian teams for Asian Games, Asian Championships and Commonwealth Games. You may call them ‘selection criteria’, ‘qualification standards’, ‘entry standards’, ‘selection guidelines’ etc, it all boils down to just one thing: what performance should an athlete turn in in order to make the team.

The ‘entry standards’ for Olympic Games and World Championships (and similar meets) are different. They are a set of standards prescribed by the international federation (IAAF) without which an athlete cannot hope to compete in the global-level championships. For the World championships, however, the IAAF has in recent years made concessions, allowing continental champions, defending champions and athletes who may get an invitation because of his/her placing in a ranking list, to be entered without any conditions. 

Both Olympics and World Championships have ‘distress quota’ meaning a country would be allowed to enter a male and a female athlete in an event (excluding certain specified events) irrespective of attaining an entry standard.

In contrast to the IAAF standards, if the federation and/or the ministry dilute the criteria_and they invariably do_you can make an Indian team.  The IAAF does not dilute any criteria, not even by 0.1s when a final list is released. That then is the difference between “entry standards” and “selection criteria”, the latter more often than not referred to as “qualification mark”.

Make no mistake, there would be statements by the federation that no concessions would be given and it would strictly stick to laid-down criteria etc. When the final hour comes there would be “adjustments”.

The Union Sports Ministry had followed its selection criteria in measurable disciplines from sometime in the 1970s. It was third place performance of the previous games (or last Asian championships, whichever is higher) for Asian Games and sixth place for the Commonwealth Games and the Olympic Games. Some concessions used to be given to “young and promising” athletes.

Once the IAAF brought in entry standards for Olympics, the Government criteria became irrelevant for athletics. But not for Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. In 2006, for the Asian Games, the ministry, however diluted the criteria to the sixth-place standard.

This was the signal for further dilution in 2010 when no criteria was insisted upon, and and to some extent in 2014 when the Government did not  firmly stick to any standard though the sixth-place standard was sort of benchmark. The AFI had its own set of norms, even though it was flouted often to benefit a few ‘favourite’ athletes.

“There are no qualifying standards for the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games. We will be uploading these qualifying standards on our website in a week so every athlete is clear about what performances will be considered when a squad is picked,” Adille Sumariwalla, AFI chief, was recently quoted as saying.

The selection criteria were uploaded on earlier occasions also when the AFI website became operational and the federation started utilizing it for communicating with the athletes and state bodies. 

That they were changed overnight at the Inter-State meet in 2014 at Lucknow led to much confusion as this report in The Hindu would confirm.

The AFI president said the other day that the selectors had referred to ‘internal qualifying standards’ when selecting an athlete. But this would be the first time that timings, distances and heights which athletes need to achieve will be uploaded on the website , said Sumariwalla.

There cannot be any “internal qualifying standards” that are unknown to the athletes. It will then be meaningless. The selectors could be given broad guidelines in case too many claimants are there for one or two slots in a team. These cannot be termed ' qualifying standards' when those standards have already been laid down by the international federation. A selection process or a policy has to be different from "internal standards".

What happened in the P. U. Chithra (in pic above) episode before the London World Championships was due to the complete lack of foresight displayed by the AFI. That led to the mess that brought Chithra's plight and the AFI functioning into national focus. Today, Chithra is one of the 17 athletes chosen in the initial list of 152 elite sportspersons for the TOPs funding and monthly stipend of Rs 50,000.

Neither the selection committee nor the athletes knew that becoming champions in the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar would not be sufficient to “qualify” for the World Championships in London.

The IAAF had laid down the policy of allowing a “free” entry to the continental champions, irrespective of the performance levels.  Unless there was a rider announced well in advance to this method of qualification by the national federation, there was no need to doubt the proces. Of course the AFI had the final authority to enter the athlete in the World championships.

Athletes briefed

At the end of the Asian championships in July, the AFI Secretary, C. K. Valson, briefed athletes and coaches to convey that the ‘Asian champion’ tag or the entry standards achieved earlier alone would not be sufficient for selection to the World championships and the athletes would be expected to come close to the IAAF standards at the inter-State meet at Guntur that was to follow within a week. Participation at the Guntur meet was a “must” for the qualified athletes, it was stated.

None of the athletes who attained standards prior to the Asian championships and had clinched their places in the London-bound squad competed at Guntur. From among those who became Asian champions and thus became eligible to go to London, steeplechaser Sudha Singh skipped the meet.

Heptathlete Swapna Barman competed only in the hurdles and long jump, while G. Lakshmanan, the double gold winner in Bhubaneswar improved his timing in 5000m compared to the Asian championships but skipped_understandably_the 10,000m.

Chithra was beaten to second place by junior Lilli Das, a fact that the AFI projected to rebut criticism that the federation had played ‘politics’ in the selection.

Chithra (4:1792 at Bhubaneswar, 4:28.87 at Guntur; IAAF standard 4:07.50) Sudha and Ajay Kumar Saroj, the men’s 1500m winner at Bhubaneswar (3:45.85 as against IAAF standard of 3:36.00) and Guntur (3:45.88) were axed. AFI’s anxiety to cut down on numbers after the Rio fiasco was understandable. But could downsizing have been achieved by dropping just three athletes?

Was there a selection criteria fixed for prospective Asian champions for them to become eligible for World championships?

None.

That is where the AFI made its first mistake. Then it compounded it by being selective in its application of so-called “internal standards” which apparently even the selectors were unaware of.

Now, to say, AFI had never set criteria for selection all these years and it would do it now since stung by the criticism and court case arising out of the Chithra episode is akin to having selective amnesia.

Tougher than prescribed

Once in the past, for the Sydney Olympic Games, the AFI had tried to fix tougher standards than required by the IAAF. That was by going for the ‘A’ standard rather than the easier ‘B’ standard. ‘A’ allowed you to enter more than one athlete while ‘B’ was good for just one. Eventually, the federation stuck to the ‘B’ standard though some of the athletes did return ‘A’ standards.

It turned out to be one of the most disastrous outings for Indian athletes in the Olympics with only K. M. Beenamol in the 400m going past the first round.

Selection norms are announced by federations. Some do it well in advance, some late in the day. The AFI has done it both ways in the past. Not surprisingly, the AFI has tended to fix norms looking at the standards of its own athletes rather than what could await them in actual competitions.

Sometimes this may click as it did in 2010 for both CWG in New Delhi and the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China.

The Government had notified in 2015 that for all the multi-discipline games the sixth-place standard would be applicable for measurable sports. This was a sequel to the drama that involved the clearance of the Indian contingent for the Incheon Asian Games.

The IOA proposed a 942-member contingent which was cut down drastically by the ministry initially. But after the Prime Minister’s intervention, a contingent of 679 including a 56-member athletics squad, was approved. The track and field athletes won 13 medals including two gold, the lone individual gold coming from discus thrower Seema Punia. In Guangzhou in 2010, Indian athletes had won five gold medals.

Will it be sixth-place criteria?

Will the Government stick to the sixth-place criteria next year? Or will it be another concession, as in 2006, to boost numbers so that someone would be able to say “we send a 1000-member contingent”!

Looking at the performances in 2016 and this season the sixth-place criteria should not pose much problems for Indian athletes in established events for both Commonwealth Games and Asian Games. This is presuming that the AFI itself would not make it a lot stiffer than that when its think-tank sets out to formulate criteria. Anything below sixth-place would be making a mockery of this business of "laying down standards".

The crucial question would be how much active would the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) be in the run-up to these two games? Out-of-competition testing that should start from November this year at least, should hold the key.
The Commonwealth Games are to be held in Gold Coast, Australia, from 4 to 15 April, 2018 while the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 18 August to 2 September.

(amended 18 Sept 2017)

An excretion study and a WADA letter lead to 8-year ban for Priyanka Panwar

A technical letter from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to all the accredited laboratories regarding the metabolites of Oxethazaine last February coupled with an 'excretion study' and an expert opinion provided by the Director of the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) clinched the argument against quarter-miler Priyanka Panwar in a doping case decided recently.

Panwar was handed an eight-year ban, this being her second offence after the more famous one involving her and five other 400m runners who were preparing in 2011 for the London Olympic relay qualification.

The 2011 offence was one involving a steroid, methandienone, alleged to have come from the Ginseng reportedly purchased by the Ukrainian coach of the 4x400 team, Yuriy Ogorodnik, in China.

This time, Panwar tested positive for the injectable stimulant mephentermine and its metabolite phentermine in a sample collected at the Inter-State meet in Hyderabad in July, 2016.  Surprisingly the case dragged on, eventually being decided more than a year after the sample collection.

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and the Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel (ADDP) surely look headed towards setting records for long-winding arbitration proceedings.

The eight-year ban should more or less end the career of the 29-year-old Uttar Pradesh runner who shot into prominence in the 2011 season by being among the contenders for a place in the 4x400m relay team for London Olympics before being sidelined through the sensational doping fiasco that ruined India’s qualification bid.

Non-specified stimulant

Mephentermine is a non-specified stimulant meaning its finding in a dope test would result in the athlete facing the same type of consequences as that for steroids. To elaborate, there would be an automatic provisional suspension unlike none in the case of a specified stimulant or substance, and the athlete would be required to prove that he or she did not take the drug intentionally to enhance performance to avoid a four-year sanction.

Panwar argued through her lawyer, Vidushpat Singhania, that she had ingested the drug mephentermine through a medicine (Mucaine Gel) prescribed by one Dr Vipin Sharma for stomach pain. She produced the prescriptions and even had the doctor depose before the panel.

It is a fact that two of the metabolites of Oxethazaine which is one of the ingredients of Mucaine Gel are mephentermine and phentermine.

Armed with the WADA technical letter on Oxethazaine and the excretion study on the drug conducted by the Cologne laboratory and her own lab, the Director of NDTL, Dr Shila Jain, presented evidence that eventually clinched the argument against the athlete.

Panwar had failed to mention the medicine (Mucaine Gel) on the doping control form though there were prescriptions dated 02-01-2016 and 07-05-2016. The panel dismissed one dated 12-12-2016 as irrelevant to the case since her sample was collected on 02-07-2016.

Dr Sharma deposed before the panel but did not say he had advised her to take it on an SOS-basis (as and when pain recurred), a point that went against the athlete.

NADA argued that the mephentermine/phentermine ratio was much higher than the “less-than-one” level that would have indicated use of Oxethazaine. In fact it was 36 times it was disclosed to the panel.

The WADA technical letter plus the report that the NDTL Director submitted about the metabolite concentration levels finally clinched the argument conclusively as far as the panel was concerned.

WADA technical letter

This is what the WADA letter to all the directors of accredited laboratories stated:

“1. Check the Sample Doping Control Form (DCF) for a declaration of use of Oxethazaine;

2. Test for the presence of Oxethazaine major Metabolites, namely β-hydroxyphentermine and β-hydroxymephentermine. Both of these Metabolites are detected in much higher concentrations than Phentermine and/or Mephentermine following the administration of Oxethazaine”.

If it was proved that use of Oxethazaine (Mucaine Gel or Stoin for example) had produced the metabolites β-hydroxymephentermine and β-hydroxyphentermine then the lab was supposed to report the result as “negative’.

Not even traces

The panel observed: “In the present case, both beta-Hydroxy metabolites of Oxethazaine were not seen even not in traces then how the athlete can take the plea that she took ‘Mucaine Gel” prior to the questioned event. This clinches the issue and the Panel has come to the conclusion, keeping in view the clarification given by Dr Shila Jain by sending reply on 06/06/2017 as well as cross-examination conducted on 30/06/2017 that Ms. Panwar has probably ingested Mephentermine and Phentermine directly and not through Mucaine Gel. The Panel has also kept in mind the concentration level of the questioned sample which was Mephentermine 11.0ng/ml and Phentermine 300mg/ml and the same was on much higher side. Therefore, the burden lies upon the athlete to prove that she had no fault (sic) or negligence for taking the benefit of Article 10.4 of the NADA Code 2015 which she could not discharge by alleging to have taken Mucaine Gel prior to the questioned event.”

On being asked by the panel to get from the NDTL details of the concentration of mephentermine and phentermine, Dr Jain also reported that as per the study conducted by NDTL and Cologne laboratory, beta-Hydroxy mephentermine and beta-hydroxy-phentermine were major metabolites of Oxethazaine and were found in urine at much higher concentration than mephentermine and phentermine.

In Panwar’s case, Dr Jain said, both Beta-Hyrdoxy metabolites of Oxethazaine were not seen, even not in traces which indicated that the “athlete might have not taken Oxethazaine”.

The fact that the laboratory tested for hydroxy metabolites of mephentermine and phentermine despite there being no mention of Mucaine Gel on the doping control form could suggest such tests were carried out at a later stage.

Singhania’s contention that the laboratory had subjected the sample to re-analysis and perhaps used them for research purposes despite being expressly forbidden by the athlete, was rebutted by NDTL.

During cross-examination, Singhania asked Dr Shila Jain:

“Has any testing been conducted after providing laboratory package of the athlete’s sample to the athlete?”

Answer: ‘No”.

Would it have been against the rules to test the sample again to establish whether Mucaine Gel was ingested or not? After all, a hearing panel could have ordered such a test to be carried out in order to come to a conclusion whether it was a direct ingestion of mephentermine or a permitted drug that caused the positive result.

Excretion studies

Dr Jain said in both the excretion studies, based on one single volunteer ingesting one single dose (10-20mg) of Oxethazaine it was found that the Hydroxy metabolites were 5-10 times higher in concentration than mephentermine and phentermine.

It was not clear whether the NDTL study was a recent one, whether it was done after the order was reserved in the Panwar case initially or whether it was done after the panel raised the issue of concentration levels of mephentermine and phentermine on 22 May, 2017.

The panel concluded that from the evidence presented and the opinion of Dr Jain it was clear that the positive result was the consequence of mephentermine use and not that of the permitted medicine, Mucaine Gel.

The defence counsel argued that Dr Jain’s testimony should not be relied upon, that metabolism of drug in the human body differed from person to person, that it depended solely on genetic factors, disease, age etc.

The panel rejected all such arguments and said “…when there was (sic) no metabolites, beta-Hydroxymephentermine and beta-Hydroxyphentermine found in the questioned sample, then how we can reach to (sic) the conclusion that she took Mucaine Gel and, therefore, the question of various factors like genetic factors, environmental factors, age and sex etc has (sic) not (sic) relevancy while disposing (sic) the matter.”

In mounting Panwar’s defence, Singhania also referred to the cases of tennis player Richard Gasquet (CAS 2009) and decisions in respect of Indian sportspersons.

Lawyer unconvinced

Singhania remained unconvinced by the procedures adopted by the laboratory and was even mulling the idea of complaining to the WADA about the additional tests or study allegedly conducted by NDTL. The lab had claimed that the athlete’s sample was not subjected to any further tests after it supplied the laboratory documentation package to her.

Panwar could not make the 4x400m relay team for Rio Olympics and later it was revealed that she had failed a dope test. She was part of the gold-winning Indian team at the Incheon Asian Games in 2014 and was considered a near-certainty for Rio till her performance slumped in the build-up period for the Olympics.

Her best for the 400m in 2016 was 54.23s and she was included only in the India ‘C’ team for the relay that was held at Hyderabad alongside the inter-state meet to provide the Indian team with a chance to ensure its Olympic berth.

The chairman of the panel, Mr. Ramnath, should be complimented for bringing out a detailed, reasoned order that went into 14 pages. Quite often ADDP orders are perfunctory in nature without either the argument made by NADA or the defence put up by the athlete or the conclusions arrived at by the panel being mentioned in clear terms. The other panel members were hockey Olympian Ashok Kumar and Dr Bikash Medhi.