Bio passport must to compete in CWG, Asiad

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 24

The athletes preparing for next year’s Commonwealth and Asian Games, including those from India, will not be allowed to participate in these mega multi-sport events without a biological passport. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has agreed in-principle to make the biological passport a must to tighten the noose around dope offenders. 

In fact, the efforts are on from WADA to make the biological passport mandatory for the Olympics as well, beginning with the 2020 Tokyo Games. Last month, the WADA Executive Board held a discussion in this regard with the senior members of the Commonwealth Games Federation and the Olympic Council of Asia and all the parties agreed to implement the decision.

What’s biological passport

A biological passport is an individual, electronic record for professional athletes, in which profiles of biological markers of doping and results of doping tests are collated over a period of time. It helps in profiling an athlete’s hematological variables for the detection of steroid concentration in the blood samples. The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) Director General Navin Agarwal, who recently returned from Lausanne after attending the WADA Annual Symposium, said the world anti-doping watchdog has been working seriously on strengthening its monitoring system. “Many countries either have a biological passport system in place or are planning to introduce one in coming months. India will also have it soon,” said Agarwal. “NADA is preparing a registered testing pool of the country’s top 100 athletes and their passports would be ready in three-four months. The athletes outside the testing pool would have their biological passports ready by January-February next year. These passports will become a must for international events like the Commonwealth and Asian Games.” 

“It will help in compiling a long-term profile of an athlete and ascertaining if he has ever indulged in the use of performance-enhancing drugs. If he ever indulges in doping, the variation in his hematological profiling would lead to the detection of the offence. For each doping offence, a marker will be put on his/her biological passport,” added Agarwal.