Others
India takes podium in Doping, second most cases after Russia
As per WADA's Anti-Doping Violations Report, India is second behind Russia in terms of doping violations.
REPRESENTATIVE PHOTO: Drugs and medals
Once again India finished in the top three but not in a sport but in the list of anti-doping rule violations published by WADA.
In the report for 2020 published by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Sunday, India, with 59 instances, comes behind the champion of the doping game, Russia, which has 135 cases.
The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), the body in charge of anti-doping activities in the nation, tested 1186 samples in 2020, including 65 blood samples. This year was severely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in fewer tests due to solid limitations on testing and transportation.
India had 152 violations in 2019 and came in third place, trailing only Italy (157), and Russia (167). It's interesting to note that India recorded 225 positive instances from 4004 samples in 2019, according to the WADA Testing Figures Report.
India has thus far maintained its ranking in the top seven in the world since 2013 when WADA began publishing the ADRV report, placing third in 2014, 2015, and 2019. It finished fourth in 2018.
WADA releases two distinct reports on testing data and ADRVs each year. The ADRV report, which ordinarily would have been released by December 2022, was postponed this time, and the testing data for 2021 were released in January 2023. The 2020 ADRV report was based on data that WADA had up until the end of January 2021.
Weightlifting (15) and athletics (12) continued to lead the list of ADRVs in India in 2020 statistics. Powerlifting and Kabaddi, two non-Olympic sports infamous for their doping problems, contributed seven cases each, while wrestling had six.
Athletics was number one in 2020 with 107 cases at the global level, followed by cycling at 94. Weightlifting (89), powerlifting (83), bodybuilding (77), mixed martial arts (74), football (67), and wrestling (44) were the other major offenders.
NADA is learned to have significantly raised testing numbers, and it is hoped that they will continue to do so in 2023, an Asian Games year as well as a year of World championships in several sports, including athletics. The key to maintaining pressure on individuals who engage in unfair practices would be to conduct more focused testing of "likely dopers," particularly in weightlifting and athletics.
