Four more lifters caught for doping

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 27

Doping in Indian weightlifting continues unabated despite repeated attempts by the federation to control the menace. In the latest incident, four weightlifters, Sunil Kumar and Pooja (Delhi), Dharmendra Paliwal (Madhya Pradesh) and Sumathi Devi (Manipur), have tested positive for banned substances. The samples were taken during the Senior National Championships in Jaipur last month.

If their ‘B’ sample also return positive, the weightlifters face a ban of at least four years. The result of ‘B’ samples will be out in a week's time, after which the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) disciplinary panel will decide on the sanctions. The lifters have tested positive for stanozolol and methyndienone, both anabolic steroids.

The incident has come barely a week after the Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWF) imposed a two-year ban on eight coaches after their wards tested positive for banned substances and suspended four state units – Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Manipur – for not doing enough to educate lifters against using banned substances.

While Sunil had clinched gold in 94kg category, Dharmendra won silver in 105kg at the Jaipur meet. Both were undergoing training for the next year's Rio Olympics at the national camp in National Institute of Sports, Patiala. The two have been asked by the federation to move out from the NIS Centre.

In the case of women lifters, Sumathi had won silver at the Kerala National Games in the +75kg category. She has also participated in three Senior World Championships, and has won bronze at the 2002 Afro-Asian Games. It has been learnt that the IWF has also banned the coaches of the four lifters for two years.

Taking its fight against the dope offenders seriously, the IWF has even written to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) to ban the coaches of 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games gold medallist and Arjuna awardee Geeta Rani (Punjab), Harjeet Kaur (Haryana), Mangte P Kom (Chandigarh) and Komal Wakale (Maharashtra). All these lifters failed the dope test during the Kerala Games in February.

Besides, a dope case has also been reported from athletics. Uttar Pradesh’s Faizal Shah, who won silver in 800m at the National Youth Athletics Championships in Goa, has failed the test.