Racewalker Bhawna Jat banned for 16 months by NADA for whereabouts failure

Indian racewalker Bhawna Jat was handed a 16-month ban for whereabouts failure by the Anti-Doping Disciplinary (ADDP) Panel of the NADA after she committed the offence in August last year.

Bhawna was provisionally suspended by the NADA in August last year and she was removed from the Indian squad for the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

Her ban period will start on 10th August 2023, the date of the provisional suspension, and the ban will be over on 10th of December this year.

The ADDP's decision to hand her the suspension under Article 2.4 of the NADA Rules was delivered on July 10 but it was published on the website of the national anti-doping watchdog only on Thursday.

Under Article 2.4, "Any combination of three (3) missed tests and/or filing failures, as defined in the International Standard for Results Management, within a twelve (12) month period by an Athlete in a Registered Testing Pool" constitutes 'Whereabouts Failures' by an athlete.

The 28-year-old Bhawna had also missed two dope tests in May and June 2023 and was warned of a filing failure in late 2022.

Jat had then blamed her failure to fulfill NADA's whereabouts conditions on glitches in the mobile application, through which she had to fill up the form, and subsequently losing her phone.

She had told PTI that her whereabouts failure was not intentional.

"I don't know how this happened. I had gone somewhere. I was not able to receive the OTP on the (mobile) application and later I lost my phone as well. This is the reason I wasn't able to update my whereabouts," she had said.

What are whereabouts failures in Doping?

One of the anti-doping violations is ‘whereabouts failure’. It is a combination of three ‘filing failures’ or ‘missed tests’ within 12 months that makes a ‘whereabouts failure’.

An athlete is needed to update their accurate information on their whereabouts every quarter so that they can be located for out-of-competition testing.

Athletes included in the Registered Testing Pool (RTP) must provide a full address for their overnight location, the name and full address of each location where they train, work, or conduct other regularly scheduled activities, as well as the usual time-frames of each activity.

RTP athletes must also identify a 60-minute window and location for each day of the quarter, during which they must be available for testing. Failure to comply with whereabouts and testing obligations will result in a whereabouts failure.

Recently, Tokyo Paralympic medalist shuttler Pramod Bhagat was suspended by NADA for whereabouts failure ending his dream of winning consecutive Paralympic medal.