More than 10 weightlifters fail dope test ahead of Commonwealth Championships

More than 10 weightlifters fail dope test ahead of Commonwealth Championships

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In a huge blow ahead of the Commonwealth Championships, more than 10 weightlifters have tested positive for performance enhancing drugs with them being asked to leave the national camp and getting banned. The National Anti-Doping Agency had collected over 30 urine samples during the national.

The national camp has been set up in Patiala ahead as the Commonwealth Championships selection trials, which is supposed to take place in at Apia from July 9-14. And with this debacle, which could see some of the athletes being banned for as many as four years, India won’t be able to get a proper a “core group” that would be competing at the World Championships in Pattaya in September to garner crucial ranking points for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Indian lifters have always been the stars in Commonwealth Games and Commonwealth Championships with India seeing as many as five gold, two silver, and an equal number of bronze medals at the 2018 Gold Coast Games. However, it is also true that the number of failed dope test has been expected to rise following NADA’s sample collection from the National Championships at Visakhapatnam from February 21-28. Four years back in 2015, over 20 lifters, including school- and college-going children, had failed dope tests.

According to the Indian Weightlifting Federation’s (IWF) anti-doping policy, the weightlifters might also be asked to pay a fine of Rs. 50,000 each with the ban also getting lifted in case someone pays a penalty of Rs. 1 lakh. The federation also has the power to debar state units in case more than two lifters fail dope tests in a calendar year. Not only that there have been cases of coaches of individual lifters getting banned as well.

“We will make it mandatory for state units to submit the whereabouts of athletes participating at the national level. The list will be given to NADA. Hopefully, it will give results. Some top lifters at the national camp in Patiala had gone home for different reasons. We have taken a serious view of this. I’m waiting for NADA’s report,” said IWF secretary-general, Sahdev Yadav, reported HT.

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