NADA to introduce ‘Athlete Biological Passport’

NEW DELHI:The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has decided to introduce the ‘Athlete Biological Passport’ by July this year to curb the menace of wide-spread doping in the country and to catch the habitual dope offenders who indulge in systematic substance abuse.

Sabi Hussain

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 25

The National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) has decided to introduce the ‘Athlete Biological Passport’ by July this year to curb the menace of wide-spread doping in the country and to catch the habitual dope offenders who indulge in systematic substance abuse. The NADA, for an effective implementation of the concept, would be preparing a ‘registered testing pool’ of India’s top 100 athletes who regularly compete in international tournaments. These athletes would be subjected to testing of their blood samples every three months.

“The biological passports will help in the profiling of an athlete’s haematological variables for the detection of blood doping. It will help in detecting steroid concentration in the blood samples,” NADA Director General Navin Agarwal told The Tribune. “The biological passports would clearly indicate if there has been any change in the haematological profile of an individual. There are various parameters through which a dope cheat would be caught if he/she indulges in systematic use of prohibited substances.”

“For example, in the case of a diabetic patient, you have various tests and procedures in place to find out the sugar level. Similarly, for doping, we know there are top athletes who have been fooling the system for long. These athletes don’t return positive for banned substances. This is because they use masking agents to cover up for their doping. There is this big problem of micro doping. It means an athlete takes the banned substance in very small quantity, which is not easily detectable in testing labs with the available equipment. These athletes take the substance below the prescribed quantity but they take it on a routine basis. The biological passports can break this vicious circle,” he added.

According to the information provided by the WADA on its website, the fundamental principle of the biological passport is to monitor selected biological variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself.

Agarwal informed that many developed countries have already put in place the system after the WADA brought changes to its guidelines in 2015.