India’s bid to win seats in WADA fails

Vinayak Padmadeo

New Delhi, November 16

India’s bid to win seats in two influential committees of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was stalled after both Sports Minister Anurag Thakur and National Anti-Doping Agency director general Ritu Sain failed to garner enough votes.

While Thakur lost to Yongman Cho for a seat in WADA’s foundation board, Sain failed in her attempt to win a seat in the National Anti-Doping Organisation Expert Advisory Group.

Japan Anti-Doping Agency’s Chika Hirai and Korea Anti-Doping Agency’s Kum-pyoung Kim were elected from the Asian region.

Results notwithstanding, this was the first time in many years that the country made a bid to get seats on the two committees.

It is also a hint that India wants a bigger say in WADA. Sain said that more than the result it was important to take part in democratic processes as one gets to interact with other representatives and share ideas.

“We participated with the intention to contribute to fair play and clean sports. We also think that we can be the voice of other countries from the region,” Sain said.

It is important to remember that India has been in the top-10 when it comes to dope offenders since 2013. The country reported 152 anti-doping rule violations in 2019. The National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) was granted accreditation late last year after a two-year suspension over non-compliance of WADA’s protocols.

NDTL’s accreditation was suspended in August 2019 for not following the International Standard for Laboratories (ISL) protocols and inconsistencies in the isotope ratio mass spectrometry results.