15-20 reports of Rio-bound athletes still awaited, says NADA chief

NEW DELHI: Only a fortnight ago, the National Anti-Doping Agency had made a startlingly tall claim that all 120 Indian athletes headed for the Rio Olympics were dope-free and clean.
"I am quite confident that the Indian contingent at the Rio Olympics will have no doping violation by any of them this time," NADA director general Navin Agarwal had declared.
But, in less than three days - between last Saturday and Monday - the claim has fallen flat with two high-profile cases tumbling out in quick succession. Close on freestyle wrestler Narsingh Yadav's sensational positive test over the weekend, shot putter Inderjeet Singh, too tested positive for banned substances, raising the obvious question whether more shockers could be expected. While he stood by his July 13 statement, on Tuesday, the NADA chief told TOI there was a good number of results on tests conducted on Indian athletes headed to Rio, that were awaited. "There are about 15-20 reports that are still awaited," Agarwal said, "We have also tested some athletes abroad. The results of some have come while others are awaited." Given that the departure dates of most teams and individuals in the contingent is at hand, NADA could be processing the results on fast-track basis.
On how long a report takes, Agarwal said, "Roughly, it takes about 10 working days to two weeks for the reports to come unless there is Balish Ahuja an urgency. In emergency, we can get the reports within 24-48 hours. We do out of competition tests for games like athletics (track and field), weightlifting, boxing, swimming where there is higher proximity of doping."
Agarwal, however, continues to stand by his statement saying all the reports that had come in were clean. "All Rio-bound athletes have been tested," he had said then, "Some of the athletes have been tested at least once, some have been tested twice and some thrice. All reports that had come till that day (July 13) were clean. Narsingh's report came a few days later," pointed out Agarwal.
"Narsingh was tested three times (in almost a month), which is normal as per WADA rules. Athletes going to Olympics generally get tested 2-3 times," he told TOI, adding, "Till that time all the reports that had come were clean. These positive tests have come in second and third testings. "It is not necessary that a person who has come out clean once remains clean forever. The athlete may be clean earlier but in the run up to the Olympics he/she may start using doping substance and we need to keep testing them regularly," he clarified further.
The Narsingh saga had raised eyebrows on proximity of the dope tests conducted by NADA, as the wrestler was tested thrice between June 2 and July 5. Agarwal refuted any wrongdoing and claimed that it was done as per the world body (WADA) rules.
FROM DOPE TESTING TO PENALTY
THE PROGRAMME: National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) is mandated to conduct in-competition and out-of-competition tests on the athletes in its registered testing pool. They develop a test distribution plan (including target testing and blood sample testing) and allocate the number of samples for each sport required.
ATHLETE RIGHTS

ATHLETES RESPONSIBILITY

RESULTS MANAGEMENT

RULE VIOLATION

EFFECTS OF PEDS (PERFORMANCE ENHANCING DRUGS) STIMULANTS

BLOOD DOPING
Increase the number of red blood cells in the body through transfusion or stimulation of EPO production GENE DOPING: Therapies which involve gene transfer of a human protein
ARTIFICIAL OXYGEN CARRIERS (AOC)

STEROIDS

DIURETICS
(source: NADA, WADA and other websites)