India among world's top-3 dope violators

New Delhi, December 21

An uptick in the number of offenders has taken India into the top-three of the world’s biggest doping violators in a WADA report detailing the transgressions for the year 2019, with bodybuilding, weightlifting and athletics contributing largely to the country’s embarrassing record.

In the latest report published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, 152 (17 per cent of the world total) anti-doping rule violations (ADRVs) were reported in India in 2019, placing it third in the list, with the maximum offenders coming from bodybuilding (57). Among Olympics sports, weightlifting leads the way with 25 ADRVs, followed by athletics (20) and wrestling (10). Boxing and judo reported four each. Four cricketers were also found to have committed ADRVs in 2019.

A lightweight in global sport, India is behind only Russia (167) and Italy (157) in the list, while Brazil (78) is fourth and Iran (70) fifth. — PTI